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^-^  "D"DTTVT/-iT7im/^TVr       "KiT        T  vT' 


PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


SM/.. 


BX  9178  .03  1892 

Odlin,  James  Edwin,  1857- 

1920. 
New  concepts  of  old  dogmas 

Nuviber 


NEW  CONCEPTS 


OF 


OLD    DOGMAS 


NEW  CONCEPTS 


OF 


OLD   DOGMAS 


A  BOOK   OF   SERMONS 


/ 


■y 
BY   REV.  JAS.  E.  ODLIN 


FLEMING    H.  REVELL   COMPANY 
CHICAGO:  I  NEW  YORK: 

148   AND    150   MADISON    STREET         |  30    UNION    SQUARE,    EAST 

Publishers  of  Evangelical  Literature. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,   in  the  year  1S93,   by 

FLEMING    H.    REVELL  COMPANY, 

In  the  Office  of   the  Librarian  of   Congress  at  Washington. 

All  Rights   Reserved. 


To 

MY  WIFE,  MY  BEST  FRIEND, 

This  Book 

IS 

Affectionately  Dedicated. 
J.  E.  O. 


PREFACE. 

These  sermons  have  been  so  kindly  received 
by  both  the  home  congregation  and  strangers 
present,  that  the  author  has  been  encouraged  to 
offer  them  to  the  larger  public,  with  the  hope 
that  they  may  be  found  suggestive  and  helpful 
in  the  higher    things  of    our    common    Christian 

^^^   *  PASTOR'S  STUDY, 

First  Presbyterian  Church. 

lVaukega?iy  III.,  Sept.  lo,  i8g2. 


CONTENTS. 


COSMOS   AND  WORLD-AGE. 

PAGE. 

I.  The  Creation  Points  to  God. — Job  j8  :ji ...  1 1 
II.  Divinity    vs.    Humanity,   or    Aurelius    vs. 

Christ, —  Matt,  y  :  12 21 

III.  The  Secular  Spirit. — Matt.  6  :  10 34 

IV.  God  the  Arbiter  of  Destiny.  —  Acts  1:7 43 

THE   USE  OF   MIRACLES. 

V.  Christ  the  Miracle-worker. — Acts  2 :  22y  23.     53 
VI.  Miracles  as  Related  to  Modern  Life. —  Acts 

ig  :  iiy  72 66 

GRACE,   LOVE,  AND  OBEDIENCE. 

VII.  The    Foreordained  Grace    of  God.  —  Rom. 

S  ■•  2g 79 

VIII.  God  is  Love. —  /  John  4:8 89 

IX.  Obedience  Demanded. —  Luke  g  .'62 99 

THE  SON  OF  MAN. 

X.  Carl  Marr's    Flagellants. —  John  14.  :  i^ .,,   108 

XL  The   Face  of  Christ. —  2  Cor.  4:6 119 

XII.  The  Stricken   Christ. —  Isa.  ^j  :  2 128 

THE  SON  OF  GOD. 

XIII.  The  Appealing  Christ. —  Rev.  3  :  20 138 

XIV.  The  Meat  which  is  Perishing. —  John6:2'j.   150 

[ix] 


Contents. 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  EXPERIENCE. 

XV.  The  Patient  doth  Minister  to  Himself. — 

John  s  :  17 164 

XVI.    LONESOMENESS    FOR   GOD. —  Eph.  2  :  12 I74 

XVII.  Freedom  of  the  Sons  of  God. — John  8 :  34. .   185 

XVIII.  The  Power  of  Habit.  —  Rom.  12  :  i 195 

XIX.  Honest  Self-denial. —  i  Peter  4  :  13 207 

XX.  Ignorance    in    Moral    Character.  —  Heb. 

4-15 219 

XXI.  The  Patience  of  Christ;  May  We  be  Par- 
takers.—  Matt.  2^  :  41 231 

THE  PRAYERFUL  TEMPER. 

XXII.  The  Basis   of  Prayer. —  JoJm  4  :  22 242 

XXIII.  The  Life  Burden  a  Prayer. —  Neh.  jj  :  14.  253 

XXIV.  A  Valid  Redemption. —  John  j  :  14^  ij 263 

IMMORTALITY. 

XXV.  Yet    shall  I  Liye. —  John  11:2^ 273 

XXVI.  He  is  not  Here;  He  is  Risen. — Matt.  28  :6.  283 


NEW  CONCEPTS  OF  OLD 
DOGMAS. 

*  *  * 

THE  CREATION   POINTS  TO   GOD 

"  Canst  thou  bind  the  cluster  of  the  Pleiades ^  or 
loose  the  bands  of  Orion  /■ " — Job  j8:ji, 

THE  nations  about  ancient  Israel  worshiped 
the  heavenly  bodies.  To  them  they  were 
the  divine  powers  or  etherial  bodies  of 
the  genii,  and  worshiped  as  such.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  Scriptures  always  maintain 
the  creature-hood  of  all  the  starry  host. 
This  would  exclude  their  deification  ;  hence 
they  are  regarded  as  light-bearers,  —  His 
ministers  a  flame  of  fire, —  the  subservers 
of  mundane  purposes.  That  they  illustrate 
by  their  greatness  and  the  splendor  of  their 
natures,  the  divine  majesty  and  wisdom,  is 
the  teaching  of  the  text.  The  Psalmist  finds 
proof  of  God's  true  love  to  man  in  the  vast 
concerns  of  a  universe  proclaimed  at  night  by 
the  glowing  splendors  of  their  glittering  orbs, 

(II) 


12         HetD  Concepts  of  £)I6  Dogmas. 

looking  out  upon  the  seething  darkness 
brooding  over  the  abysmal  gulf  of  time. 
There  was  an  age  when  men  did  not  under- 
stand very  much  of  anything  save  the  little 
strip  of  earth  their  own  nation  inhabited,  and 
such  other  country  as  they  had  covered  in 
their  travels.  The  highest  form  of  philoso- 
phy and  knowledge  was  engrossed  by  the 
man  himself  and  the  organized  governments 
under  which  he  lived.  He  had  sculpture, 
architecture,  wealth,  slaves.  Gold  and  silver 
were  his  money  and  his  ornament.  Bronze 
was  his  weapon  and  utensil ;  war  and  its 
divertisement  the  employment  and  pleasure 
of  his  existence.  Such  a  man  worshiped  as 
gods  the  protector  of  the  streams  about  him> 
of  the  vale  in  which  his  village-city  stood,  or 
the  ever-present  miracle  of  the  sun  by  day 
and  the  moon  by  night.  The  ancient  the- 
istic  belief  of  the  Jew  taught  or  was  cogni- 
zant of  a  world  creation  and  sustentation, 
through  the  Lord,  the  giver  of  life, —  an 
apprehension  strictly  in  keeping  with  the 
scientific  spirit  of  our  century.  The  heavens 
by  day,  the  moon  and  stars  by  night,  were 
before  all  men.  Here  was  the  real  mystery 
of  existence  laid  bare,  if  rightly  understood. 
Conscious   there  was   no   adequate   solution 


^E?e  Creation  Points  to  (5o6.  13 

of  the  mystery  of  the  stars  by  night,  aside 
from  God  as  first  cause,  the  writer's  hand 
is  pointing  to  the  mystery  of  the  chaos 
which  fills  all  the  heavenly  spaces,  whether 
glowing  for  us  in  the  radiance  of  the  sun,  or 
shrouded  in  the  veiled  face  of  mother  earth 
withdrawn  from  the  blaze  of  celestial  glories. 
Assured  that  men  cannot  explain  away  the 
facts  of  universal  nature,  though  they  might 
smirch  their  own  birthright  in  proving  them- 
selves earth-born,  he  turns  his  eyes  to  the 
ever-present  object  lesson  writ  all  over  the 
material  things  which  man  handles  and 
knows,  concerning  the  omnipotence  of  the 
over-soul  and  the  all-wise  nature  of  the 
superhuman  Intelligence  which  holds  flam- 
beauant  torches  over  the  bottomless  gulfs  of 
the  stellar  places,  from  which,  listening,  we 
may  hear  *'the  roaring  loom  of  time." 

The  tendency  of  this  age,  we  may  call  it 
the  world  spirit,  is  to  magnify  the  miracle  of 
life.  We  live  ;  the  animals  live  ;  the  plants 
and  trees  live.  This  wonderful  benefac- 
tion over  which  man  has  dominion,  fills  his 
senses,  absorbs  his  nature,  and  blinds  his 
intellect  until,  as  Bunyan  so  well  portrays, 
he  may  be  all  absorbed  in  what  his  muck- 
rake  shall  fetch  him  of  glittering  gold,  the 


14  Hem  Concepts  of  Vlb  Dogmas. 

substance  of  the  world's  wealth,  from  refuse 
and  ashes.  But  the  stars  are  above  him,  and 
he  can  see  them,  the  glittering  jewels  of  a 
dead  creation.  Far  out  as  his  eye  can  reach 
there  is  nothing  but  death  ;  illimitable  waves 
of  light  and  sound  are  coursing  through  the 
transparent  ether,  a  great  ocean  bearing  ma- 
jestically upon  its  bosom  at  least  five  stellar 
systems  moving,  like  our  earth  and  its 
planets,  around  a  common  center.  Man  is 
supreme  in  his  domain  of  life. 

Elihu  had  closed  his  harangue  of  distrust 
with  the  words  :  "  Touching  the  Almighty,  we 
cannot  find  Him  out ;  He  is  excellent  in 
power  and  in  judgment,  and  plenteous  justice. 
He  will  not  afflict.  Men  do  therefore  fear 
Him  :  He  regardeth  not  any  that  are  wise  of 
heart."  To  which  God  makes  answer  out  of 
the  whirlwind,  showing  that,  judging  by  His 
handiwork,  men  must  admit  His  wisdom  as 
seen  in  all  the  creation.  The  argument  is 
simply  a  great  piling  of  one  upon  another,  an 
Ossa  upon  Pelion,  that  the  majestic  nature  of 
the  Deity  may  be  seen  in  a  great  heap  of  His 
works.  In  the  midst  of  this  discourse  He  draws 
an  argument  from  the  heavens.  "  Canst  thou 
bind  the  cluster  of  the  Pleiades,  or  loose  the 
bands  of  Orion  .'*     Canst  thou  lead  forth  the 


CI?e  (£reatton  Points  to  ^ob,  lo 

signs  of  the  Zodiac  in  their  season  ?  or  canst 
thou  guide  Arcturus  with  her  train?" 

Look  up  now  to  the  heavens  and  see  the  six 
bright  stars  of  the  Pleiades,  or  seven,  if  your 
eyes  are  gifted  ;  named  after  the  seven  daugh- 
ters of  Atlas  and  Pleione,  who,  pursued  by 
the  hunter  Orion  and  beseeching  divine  pro- 
tection, were  translated  to  the  stars  ;  one  of 
whom  fable  says  is  invisible  for  shame  be- 
cause, goddess-born,  she  loved  a  mortal  man. 
But  there  are  more  than  seven  ;  some  eyes  can 
see  eleven.  There  are  six  to  average  eyes  ; 
while  viewed  through  **  the  optic  glass  of  the 
Tuscan  artist,"  they  are  multiplied  tenfold. 
These  stars  have  ever  held  human  interest. 
In  the  ancient  astrology  they  brought  stormy 
weather.  Job  elsewhere  speaks,  however,  of 
their  good  omens  ;  while  Milton,  taking  up 
the  same  thought,  sings  of  how,  leading  forth 
the  sun  at  the  creation  of  the  solar  system, 

"The  gray 
Dawn  and  the  Pleiades  before  Him  danced, 
Shedding  sweet  influence." 

What  does  the  Psalmist  mean  by  **  binding 
the  cluster  of  the  Pleiades  or  loosing  the  bands 
of  Orion  "  ?  Was  it  not  an  inspired  testimony 
as  to  the  motion  of  these  stars  in  their  orbits, 
which  never  can  be  fettered  by  man  ?  And 


16  Heu)  (Eoncepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

those  bands  of  Orion  ;  what  are  they  belted 
across  but  the  famous  nebulae  of  that  con- 
stellation of  which  Herschell  says,  ''  I  know 
n(5t  how  to  describe  it  better  than  by  com- 
paring it  to  a  curdling  liquid,  or  a  surface 
strewed  over  with  flocks  of  wool,  or  to  the 
breaking  up  of  a  mackerel  sky  when  the 
clouds  of  which  it  consists  begin  to  assume 
a  cirrous  appearance  "  ?  One  of  those  three 
stars  in  Orion's  belt  is  white,  and  another 
red.  Now  white  stars  "represent  the  early 
adult  and  most  persistent  stage  of  stellar  life  ; 
.  .  .  while  ...  in  the  red  stars  we  see  the 
setting  in  and  advance  of  old  age  ;  midway 
between  which  is  our  solar  system  in  the 
period  of  full  maturity  and  commencing  age  ; 
the  third  star  is  nebulous,  and  all  the  stars 
of  Orion  are  seen  against  that  nebulae,  the 
fiery  mist  or  shining  fluid  out  of  which  the 
heavens  and  earth  [have]  been  slowly  fash- 
ioned." 

Belted  Orion,  then,  is  constant  witness  of 
God's  might,  every  night  giving  fitting  dem- 
onstration of  God's  formative  work  in  the 
creation  of  the  worlds,  described  rudely  in 
Genesis,  but  going  on  before  our  eyes  in 
spectrum  analysis.  You  will  notice  there- 
fore   a    wonderful   correspondence   between 


Cl?e  Creation  Points  to  (Sob.  17 

the    latest   science    and    God's   book    in    the 
first  chapter. 

"  When  I  consider  the  moon  and  the  stars, 
which  Thou  hast  ordained."  Who  is  it  that 
thus  considers  ?  Why,  it  is  a  man  looking 
out  into  the  heavens,  and  he  can  see  2000 
stars,  but  the  telescope  brings  millions  within 
range.  The  argument  is  therefore  many  times 
stronger  to-day  than  it  was  in  the  time  of  the 
Psalmist.  But  light  is  now  dissected  by  the 
spectroscope  after  it  has  traveled  nearly  200 
years  from  Arcturus.  Indeed,  Arcturus  may 
have  disappeared  a  hundred  years  ago,  and 
we  not  have  found  it  out  yet.  But  we  are 
catching  proofs  of  what  it  was,  and  estab- 
lishing forever  its  component  parts.  And  as 
to  the  signs  of  the  Zodiac,  they  were  simply 
marks  upon  the  map  of  the  heavens,  render- 
ing the  name  and  place  of  each  intelligible  ; 
but  since  it  is  possible,  by  the  dry  gelatine 
plates  of  photography,  which  are  exposed 
for  hours,  to  gather  up  impressions  through 
light-energy  of  the  faintest  objects,  it  has  be- 
come feasible  to  photograph  the  very  stars  in 
their  courses,  and  to  record  light-waves  too 
small  and  too  large  to  excite  vision  in  the 
human  eye.  This  enlarged  capacity  ena- 
bles a   photography    of  the    heavens,  which 


18         Heir)  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

began  with  Draper's  picture  of  Orion  in 
1880,  and  which,  dividing  the  work  among 
eighteen  observatories,  arranges  to  make  a 
great  photographic  chart  of  stars  in  the 
heavens  to  the  14th  magnitude,  to  consist 
of   11,000   views    each   4°   square. 

There  are  stellar  systems  several  times  the 
size  of  the  solar  system,  hurtling  toward  us 
at  wonderful  velocities.  There  are  quiet 
nebulae,  or  very  nearly  so,  as  if  they  were 
sentinels  on  the  border  land  at  the  ends  of 
the  immensities.  There  are  dark  worlds 
rolling  along  in  the  darkness  like  unperceived 
meteors  before  they  reach  the  confines  of 
the  earth's  atmosphere  ;  and  the  collisions 
of  these  dark  suns,  not  provided  against  by 
Omnipotence,  is  perchance  the  source  of  the 
nebulous  stars  through  which  is  accomplished 
the  more  or  less  complete  rejuvenescence  of 
the  old,  old  world.  This,  with  the  interplay 
of  electricity  in  far-off  worlds,  destructive  and 
luminous,  may  well  make  the  dust-formed 
son  of  man  stand  awestruck,  as  he  considers 
the  stars  which  God  has  ordained. 

Canst  thou,  O  man !  lead  forth  this  vast 
precession  ?  In  all  that  modern  science  has 
done  for  you,  has  it  given  you  power  over 
the  celestial  spaces  .''     Has  it  done  aught  for 


CI?e  Creation  Points  to  ^06.  19 

you,  save  to  reveal  in  most  appalling  way 
the  feebleness  of  man's  nature  in  the  lap  of 
God  ?  Is  not  the  sentence  of  the  Psalmist 
full  of  soul-stirring  solemnity  in  view  of  the 
growth  of  the  heavens  as  they  have  been  un- 
folded to  the  mind  of  man  ?  ''When  I  con- 
sider the  heavens,  the  work  of  Thy  fingers, 
the  moon  and  the  stars,  which  Thou  hast 
ordained  ;  what  is  man,  that  Thou  art  mindful 
of  him,  or  the  son  of  man,  that  Thou  visit- 
est  him  ? " 

**  The  brighter  stars  cluster  into  well-known 
groups  upon  a  background  formed  of  an  en- 
lacement  of  streams  and  convoluted  windings 
and  intertwined  spirals  of  fainter  stars,  which 
becomes  richer  and  more  intricate  in  the  ir- 
regularly rifted  zone  of  the  Milky  Way.  We 
who  form  a  part  of  the  emblazonry,  can  only 
see  the  design  distorted  and  confused  ;  here 
crowded,  there  scattered,  at  another  place 
superposed.  .  .  .  Can  we  suppose  that  each 
luminous  point  has  no  relation  to  the  others 
near  it  than  the  accidental  neighborship  of 
grains  of  sand  upon  the  shore,  or  of  particles 
of  the  wind-blown  dust  of  the  desert }  Surely 
every  star,  from  Sirius  and  Vega  down  to 
each  grain  of  the  light-dust  of  the  Milky  Way, 
has  its  present  place  in  the  heavenly  pattern 


20         Xlew  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

from  the  slow  evolving  of  its  past."^  In  other 
words,  to  this  profound  student,  astronomical 
knowledge  all  points  to  God,  the  first  cause 
and  maintainer  of  the  stellar  universe. 


1  From    address  before  British  Association  by  its  presi- 
dent, Dr.  W.  Huggins,  Aug.  19,  1891. 


AURELIUS  VS.  CHRIST. 

*'  All  things  therefore  whatsoever  ye  would  that 
men  should  do  unto  you,  even  so  do  ye  also 
unto  them:  for  this  is  the  law  and  the 
prophets.''  —Matt,  y :  12. 

I  TAKE  the  golden  rule  as  my  text,  because 
I  desire  to  consider  a  great  Roman  charac- 
ter, who  was  a  teacher  of  moral  power,  whose 
works  have  been  translated  into  modern 
languages,  and  who  is  venerated  by  many 
thinking  men  in  our  day.  I  desire  to  set 
over  against  his  best  teaching  the  word  of 
Jesus,  and  try  to  show  how  different  it  is  in 
reach  and  power,  and  how  much  above  it 
looms  the  majestic  nature  of  the  teachings 
of  the  New  Testament. 

'•Our  little  systems  have  their  day, 
They  have  their  day  and  cease  to  be ; 
They  are  but  broken  lights  of  Thee, 
And  Thou,  O  Lord,  art  more  than  they." 

It  will  naturally  occur  to  you  to  ask 
whether  there  is  any  trace  of  the  golden  rule 
in  the  writings  of  Aurelius,  I  can  say  there 
are  passages  which  show  in  a  degree  the 
same  spirit.     Let  me  quote:    "Adapt    thy- 

(21) 


22  HetD  Concepts  of  V\b  Dogmas. 

self  to  the  .  .  .  men  among  whom  thou 
hast  received  thy  portion,  love  them,  but 
do  it  truly."  "Just  as  it  is  with  the  mem- 
bers in  those  bodies  which  are  united  in  one, 
so  it  is  with  rational  beings  which  exist 
separate,  for  they  have  been  constituted  for 
one  co-operation;"  or  as  Paul  says,  **All 
members  have  not  the  same  office." 

Again,  Aurelius  says,  ''  The  best  way  of 
avenging  thyself  is  not  to  become  like  the 
wrong-doer."  Not  so  high  a  standard,  all  will 
admit,  as,  ''  If  thy  enemy  hunger,  feed  him  ; 
if  he  thirst,  give  him  drink  ;  for  in  so  doing 
thou  shalt  heap  coals  of  fire  on  his  head." 
He  says  elsewhere :  ''  Shall  any  man  hate 
me  ?  Let  him  look  to  it.  But  I  will  be  mild 
and  benevolent  to  every  man,  and  ready  to 
show  even  him  his  mistakes." 

His  view  is  within  ;  he  has  large  apprecia- 
tion of  the  contents  of  the  human  heart.  His 
philosophy  of  life  from  that  standpoint  is 
Epicurean,  that  is,  strive  to  be  happy,  and  he 
magnifies  the  Stoic  life  to  this  end.  Hence, 
he  can  give  such  a  sentence  as  this  :  "  If 
thou  findest  in  human  life  anything  better 
than  justice,  truth,  temperance,  fortitude, 
and,  in  a  word,  anything  better  than  thy  own 
mind's  self-satisfaction,  .  .  .  turn  to  it  with  all 


2tureltus  vs.  <Ll}x\st  23 

thy  soul,  and  enjoy  that  which  thou  hast  found 
to  be  the  best."  "The  mind  which  is  freed 
from  passions  is  a  citadel ;  for  man  has  noth- 
ing more  secure  to  which  he  can  fly  for  ref- 
uge, and  for  the  future  be  inexpugnable."  In 
this  he  is  at  one,  it  seems  to  the  preacher, 
with  the  Nazarene  :  "  Keep  thy  heart  with 
all  diligence,  for  out  of  it  are  the  issues  of 
life." 

According  to  the  Stoic  philosophy  all 
things  change,  there  being  a  true  conserva- 
tion of  energy.  This  man  was  the  forerun- 
ner of  the  modern  materialistic  school,  and 
had  their  thought  of  atoms  and  the  physical 
organization  of  things  as  far  as  was  possible 
in  the  state  of  scientific  knowledge.  But  in 
this  transitoriness,  "Keep  thyself  calm,"  is 
his  maxim,  and  do  thy  duty,  living  according 
to  the  nature  of  things  in  a  God-made  world, 
and  according  to  reason.  ''Whatever  any 
one  does  or  says,  I  must  be  good  ;"  just  as  if 
the  gold,  or  the  emerald,  or  the  purple  were 
always  saying,  "  Whatever  any  one  does  or 
says,  I  must  be  emerald,  and  keep  my  color." 
"Belike  the  promontory,  against  which  the 
waves  continually  break,  but  it  stands  firm 
and  tames  the  fury  of  the  water  around  it." 
"Be  cheerful  also  and  seek  not  external  help 


24         Xlcw  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

nor  the  tranquillity  which  others  give."  A 
man,  then,  must  stand  erect,  not  be  kept 
erect  by  others.  Christ  has  a  similar  thought 
concerning  constancy:  "  He  that  putteth  his 
hand  to  the  plow,  and  looketh  back,  is  not 
fit  for  the  kingdom  of  God." 

This  man  is  no  Puritan  ;  he  teaches  that 
sin  in  others  should  be  unnoticed.  All  the 
area  of  his  combat  is  within.  He  elsewhere 
teaches  a  philanthropy  for  others,  but  he  no- 
where teaches  that  we  should  strive  to  make 
men  better.  He  says,  "Look  not  around, 
at  the  depraved  morals  of  others,  but  run 
straight  along  the  line  without  deviating  from 
it."  "  How  many  pleasures  have  been  en- 
joyed by  robbers,  patricides,  tyrants."  He 
would  not  have  us  like  them  ;  he  would 
teach  us  to  despise  those  motives  that  rule 
them,  and  hence  despise  pleasure.  'This  man 
could  not  have  been  the  disciple  of  Him  who 
twice  cleared  the  temple  courts  of  money 
changers  and  them  that  sold  doves,  using  in 
His  strong  right  arm  a  whip  of  small  cords, 
and  whose  admonition  has  ever  since  made 
the  second  thought  of  discipleship,  —  so  to 
live  that  men  may  see  your  good  works,  and 
glorify  your  Father  who  is  in  heaven.  To 
him  the  soul  is  a  citadel  having  the  misfort- 


2(ureltus  P5.  (£(?rt5t.  25 

une  to  be  loaded  down  with  a  body  whose 
infirmities  it  must  bear  with  as  little  notice 
as  possible.  **Thou  art  a  little  soul,  bearing 
about  a  corpse."  (Ep't'.)  **  Consider  thyself  to 
be  dead  ;  .  .  .  and  live  according  to  nature  the 
remainder  which  is  allowed  thee."  He  would 
treat  all  pain  as  the  American  Indian  bore 
indignities,  wounds,  and  death  at  the  hands 
of  his  enemies  ;  so,  too,  all  fame  and  honor  ; 
so,  too,  all  the  luxuries  of  wealth.  The  body 
he  loathed  ;  the  spirit  he  crowned.  Christ 
might  have  taught  him,  **  Those  things  which 
proceed  out  of  the  mouth  come  forth  from 
the  heart  ;  and  they  defile  the  man."  The 
Stoic  needed  to  know  that  the  body  and  the 
things  thereof  were  no  defilement  only  as 
perverted  ;  that  the  noble  office  of  religion 
is  to  rule  and  save  the  whole  man,  rendering 
unto  God  the  things  that  are  God's. 

Not  only  do  men  die,  but  they  are  also  to 
be  forgotten  ;  hence  this  teacher  would  have 
us  magnify  the  present,  as  being  all  there  is 
for  the  individual.  **  Thou  art  satisfied  with 
the  amount  of  substance  which  has  been 
assigned  thee,  so  be  content  with  the  time." 
"Near  is  thy  forgetfulness  of  all  things  ;  and 
near  the  forgetfulness  of  thee  by  all."  "  Short- 
lived are  both  the  praiser  and  the  praised, 


26         Xtevo  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

and  the  rememberer  and  the  remembered  ; 
and  all  this  in  a  nook  of  this  part  of  the 
world."  "  I  am  the  resurrection  and  the  life," 
said  our  Lord;  "he  that  believeth  in  me, 
though  he  were  dead,  yet  shall  he  live."  Yet 
Aurelius  believed  that  the  reason  why  Chris- 
tians feared  death  no  more  than  he,  was 
because  they  were  obstinate  and  dramatic. 

Marcus  Aurelius  had  no  fear  of  death,  and 
yet  he  appeals  to  the  transitoriness  of  exist- 
ence, bidding  us  do  every  act  of  our  ''  life  as 
if  it  were  the  last ;  "  but  the  sobering  thought 
is,  t/iat  it  is  the  last,  and  death  ends  all. 
Hear  him  speak  for  himself  :  *^  Everything 
is  only  for  a  day,  both  that  which  remembers 
and  that  which  is  remembered."  "Death  is 
a  cessation  of  the  impressions  through  the 
senses,  and  of  the  pulling  of  the  strings  which 
move  the  appetites  and  of  the  discursive  move- 
ments of  the  thoughts,  and  of  the  service  to 
the  flesh."  "Do  not  act  as  if  thou  wert 
going  to  live  ten  thousand  years.  Death 
hangs  over  thee.  While  thou  livest,  while  it 
is  in  thy  power,  be  good."  "And  to  say  all 
in  a  word,  everything  which  belongs  to  the 
body  is  a  stream,  and  what  belongs  to  the 
soul  is  a  dream  and  vapor,  and  life  is  a  war- 
fare and  a  stranger's  sojourn,  and  after  fame 


TXntdxixs  vs.  (Zl}vxst  27 

is  oblivion."  This  reminds  one  of  Wesley's 
hymn,  which  at  least  is  Christianly  in- 
spired :  — 

"  Our  life  is  a  dream, 
Our  time  as  a  stream 
Glides  swiftly  away, 
And  the  fugitive  moment  refuses  to  stay," 

and  which  ends  with  the  stanzas, — 

"  O  that  each  in  the  day 

Of  His  coming  might  say, 
*  I  have  fought  my  way  through, 
I  have  finished  the  work  Thou  didst  give 
me  to  do.' 

"  O  that  each  from  his  Lord 
May  receive  the  glad  word, 
'  Well  and  faithfully  done, 
Enter  into  My  joy,  and  sit  down  on  My 
throne.'" 

Nothing  can  better  ilUustrate  the  dif- 
erence  between  this  noble  heathen's  teach- 
ing, —  drawn  from  the  certainty  of  this 
life,  and  the  sole  opportunity  given  a  hu- 
man being  for  doing  good,  so  that  he  should 
long  to  do  good  for  the  simple  sake  of 
the  good  he  can  do,  apart  from  all  rewards 
and  punishments  in  the  world  to  come, —  and 
Christianity,  which  sets  before  us  the  same 
argument  under  the  idea  of  this  life  as  a  pro- 


28         Hetp  (Loncepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas, 

bation,  and  besides  fills  the  present  moment 
with  the  eternal  consequences  of  the  life  to 
come.  Do  good  now,  says  the  Christian 
teacher,  for  the  night  cometh,  when  no  man 
can  work. 

But  while  lacking  the  impressive  argument 
of  the  fixity  of  character,  this  Stoic  emperor 
gives  profound  witness  of  the  power  of  con- 
science. He  often  speaks  of  it  as  the  dcsnion 
within,  sometimes  calling  it  the  deity,  some- 
times the  divine  part.  This  holy  presence 
he  venerates.  '*  Reverence  of  the  dceinon  con- 
sists in  keeping  it  pure  from  passion  and 
thoughtlessness,"  "preserving  it  tranquil,  fol- 
lowing it  obediently  as  a  god,  neither  saying 
anything  contrary  to  the  truth,  nor  doing 
anything  contrary  to  justice." 

The  second  distinguishing  feature  of  practi- 
cal Stoicism  is  its'  doctrine  of  contentment. 
The  apostle  says,  "  Godliness  with  content- 
ment is  great  gain."  The  contentment  of 
Aurelius  is  very  wide  ;  it  is  the  satisfaction  of 
the  soul  with  the  law  of  nature.  He  teaches 
that  "  in  anger  the  soul  does  violence  to  itself; 
hence  anger  is  sin."  The  Lord  Jesus  said  : 
"Love  your  enemies,  bless  them  that  curse 
you,  pray  for  them  who  despitefully  use  you 
and  persecute  you."     Again,  Aurelius  taught 


2(ureltus  t>5.  Ct?rtst.  29 

the  soul  does  violence  to  itself  when  it  is  over- 
powered by  pleasure  or  pain.  Jesus  taught, 
"Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with 
all  thy  heart,  mind,  and  strength."  Aurelius 
taught  that  the  soul  does  violence  to  itself 
when  it  says  anything  insincerely  or  untruly. 
The  Lord  Jesus  said,  "  Blessed  are  the  pure  in 
heart,  for  they  shall  see  God."  Aurelius 
taught  also  that  the  soul  does  violence  to  itself 
when  it  does  anything  carelessly  or  without 
aim.  Jesus  said,  "But  let  your  communica- 
tion be  Yea,  yea ;  Nay,  nay :  for  whatso- 
ever is  more  than  these  cometh  of  evil." 
And  finally,  Aurelius  taught  man's  duty  to 
the  state,  while  Jesus  of  Nazareth  said, 
"Render  unto  Caesar  the  things  that  are 
Caesar's."  In  other  words,  to  Aurelius  vexa- 
tion is  sin,  whether  to  a  man  or  to  his  con- 
science. Hence  the  person  should  hold 
himself  calm  against  every  sort  of  pleasure, 
pain,  praise,  anger,  pride,  and  ease,  and 
against  injustice  and  untruth. 

This  shows  us  the  length  of  his  tether ; 
or,  if  you  please,  the  lack  and  the  resources 
of  a  man  without  the  Bible.  While  there  is 
a  kind  of  working  morality  here,  there  is 
small  consciousness  of  sin,  and  yet  enough  so 
that  he  can  say :  "  Never  value  anything  as 


30  HctD  Concepts  of  £)16  Dogmas. 

profitable  to  thyself  which  shall  compel  thee 
to  break  thy  promise,  to  lose  thy  self-respect, 
to  hate  any  man,  to  suspect,  to  curse,  to  act 
the  hypocrite,  to  desire  anything  that  needs 
walls  and  curtains."  He  also  understands 
the  course  and  power  of  temptation,  speak- 
ing of  which  he  says :  "  All  these  things, 
even  though  they  may  seem  to  adapt  them- 
selves to  the  better  things  in  a  small  degree, 
obtain  the  superiority  all  at  once  and  carry 
us  away."  Toward  the  gods  he  was  reverent, 
but  they  were  the  sun  and  perchance  other 
'planets,  component  parts  of  the  universe. 
He  really  believed,  like  Emerson,  Fichte, 
and  Hegel,  that  God  is  revealed  in  the  world, 
it  being  a  revelation  of  himself,  and  that 
thus  conceived  God  is  the  world,  and  the 
world  is  God.  Hence  he  could  say  con- 
stantly, '*  Regard  -the  universe  as  one  living 
being,  having  substance  and  one  soul  ;  and 
observe  how  all  things  have  reference  to  one 
perception,  the  perception  of  this  one  living 
being ;  and  how  all  things  act  with  one  move- 
ment ;  and  how  all  things  are  the  co-operating 
causes  of  all  things  which  exist;  "and  also, 
"I  venerate,  and  I  am  firm,  and  I  trust  in 
Him  who  governs,"  or  *'  what  else  than  to 
venerate  the  gods  and  bless  them  ?" 


2(ureltus  vs.  Christ.  31 

Two  considerations  remain  to  me  in  clos- 
ing. This  same  noble  Marcus  Aurelius  was 
one  of  the  persecuting  heathen  emperors. 
We  are  told  that  under  him  the  persecu- 
tions took  a  fresh  turn  ;  he  gave  full  scope 
to  the  outbursts  of  popular  fury,  and  intro- 
duced espionage  and  tortures,  that  Chris- 
tians might  be  led  to  recant.  Now  this  was 
a.  man  who  advocated  toleration  among  the 
heathen,  but  who  could  not  tolerate  Christ. 
The  most  horrible  persecutions  occurred  un- 
der his  auspices.  To  mention  the  most  fa- 
mous instance  :  Blandina,  a  delicate  female 
slave,  was  scourged,  roasted  on  a  red-hot  chair, 
thrown  to  the  wild  beasts,  and  then  executed. 
The  dead  bodies  of  the  martyrs  lay  in  heaps 
on  the  streets  at  Vienne.  John  Stuart  Mill 
calls  it  **one  of  the  most  tragical  events  in 
all  history,"  and  Mill  ought  to  know.  The 
emperor  seems  to  have  been  angered  by  the 
enthusiasm  with  which  the  Christians  met 
death.  The  cold  moralist  put  to  death  the 
enthusiast  for  holiness.  It  is  claimed  that 
Aurelius  never  read  a  line  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment ;  if  true,  it  is  so  much  against  his  repu- 
tation, for  he  was  deluged  with  Christian 
apologies,  and  as  emperor  had  no  right  to 
condemn  unheard  any  set  of  opinions. 


32  Hem  Concepts  of  £)I6  Pogmas. 


Here  was  a  man  possessed  of  the  scientific 
spirit  and  a  moral  character  of  great  worth,  a 
man  whom  the  modern  agnostic  quotes.    I  do 
not  dig  him  out  of  his  grave  to  do  despite  to 
his  memory,  but  I   do  rather    exult  to  think 
how  narrow  is  the  sneer  against  the  fanatical 
spirit  of   the    church,    when    he    whom    they 
could    crown  as    the  consummation    of  their 
ideal  in  most  ancient  times,  showed  the  per- 
secuting  spirit    with    most    terrible    ferocity 
against    the    same    Christianity    which    the 
modern  Pantheist  hates.     Secondly,  this  man 
was  extolled  by  John  Stuart  Mill  as  a  writer 
in  his  **  Meditations"  of  an  ethical  elevation 
almost  equal   to  that  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount.     I  am  willing  to  grant  the  helpfulness 
of  that  book  to  a  man  who  does  his  duty  ;  it 
is  an  ethical   hand-book  of  value  to   me  per- 
sonally.     I  admit  its  help.     But  it  is  no  more 
to  be  compared  with  the  ethical  teachings  of 
Christ  than  a  speck  of  dust  in  a  ray   of  sun- 
light athwart  a  darkened  room  is  to  be  com- 
pared to  the   blazing  glory   of  the   noon-day 
sun.     It    is    a  little    revelation    made    to  the 
natural  heart  through  the  Holy  Ghost.     This 
man  thus  eulogized  by  Mill  was  made  a  god 
in  Rome  when  he  died,  in    i8o   A.    D.     Mill 
nearly  succeeded,  in    his    own    imagination  ; 


2(ureltus  t?s.  <Ll}v\st  33 

the  ancients  succeeded  quite,  and  placed 
his  bust  in  the  atrium  of  their  houses  among 
the  Penates.  There  is  no  comfort  in  anything 
Marcus  Aurelius  can  say  apart  from  Jesus 
Christ.  There  is  stimulus  in  him,  but  there 
is  no  inspiration  of  life.  We  take  him  as  our 
friend  ;  we  take  Christ  as  our  Redeemer,  and 
rejoice  that  we  have  a  greater  light  than 
this  great  genius  of  the  past. 


THE  SECULAR  SPIRIT. 

*'  Thy  kingdom  come.'''' — Matt.  6:io. 

THERE  is  a  pomp  of  earth  distinctively  as- 
sociated with  human  life.  When  we  rear 
the  magnificent  bronze  to  perpetuate  the 
characteristic  appearance  of  some  celebrated 
person,  long  lines  of  veteran  organizations, 
loud  volleys  of  artillery,  and  all  the  impressive 
ceremonial  it  is  possible  to  devise,  mark  its 
completion  and  devotion  to  its  great  and 
beautiful  aim,  which  is  to  perpetuate  among 
men  the  memory  of  the  golden  words  that 
fell  from  those  lips,  and  of  the  unique  in- 
fluence of  that  marked  personality  upon  the 
community  life  of  its  age. 

In  a  certain  sense  a  life  is  the  product  of 
the  environment.  It  is  one  thing  to  be  born 
on  Lake  Michigan  at  latitude  43°,  and  quite 
another  to  be  born  at  Stanley  Pool  on  the 
Congo.  What  career  is  worked  out  on  either 
continent  is  in  a  measure  distinctive  thereof 
The  savage  chief  in  the  heart  of  Africa  holds 
his  position  in  a  kind  of  representative  capac- 
ity ;  a  reverence  attaches  thereto  sufficient 
(34) 


^l}t  Secular  Spirit,  35 

to  transmit  his  autocratic  power  to  his  de- 
scendants. The  world  age  of  his  time  finds  in 
him  its  most  splendid  representative,  and 
would  surely  claim  him  as  its  own.  Very- 
much  the  same  way  in  our  land,  the  distin- 
guished man  is  claimed  to  have  the  marks  of 
the  commonalty  about  him  ;  he  is  first  of  all 
the  product  of  their  schools,  their  religion, 
their  culture,  and  their  civilization. 

The  same  glorification  of  the  world  period 
is  traceable  in  art.  Each  splendid  effort  of 
genius  illustrates  more  fully  human  experi- 
ence, and  unfolds  more  widely  the  truth  of 
man's  likeness  to  his  Maker.  True,  most  of 
the  classic  names  of  painters  have  been  those 
distinguished  in  their  treatment  of  religious 
subjects,  and  many  critics  propose  to  find  in 
their  works  evidence  of  profound  spiritual  ex- 
perience. Correggio,  Titian,  Carracci,  Do- 
menichino,  Guido  Reni,  Michael  Angelo,  are 
all  church  Christians  of  a  pronounced  type. 
In  music  we  may  similarly  call  the  list  of 
great  names,  and  we  shall  find  many  a  one 
whose  distinction  rests  upon  work  more  or 
less  directly  religious.  Handel  could  not  be 
Handel  without  the  "  Messiah, "  any  more  than 
Raphael  could  be  Raphael  without  the  Ma- 
donnas.    But  these  representatives  serve  as 


36  HetD  Concepts  of  Vlb  Dogmas. 

the  basis  of  the  canons  of  modern  art  in 
their  sphere,  just  as  the  mutilated  Greek 
sculpture  in  its  sphere,  not  withstanding 
the  influence  of  time  in  mutilation,  is  su- 
preme as  the  standard  of  taste. 

This  individual  state  of  the  human  mind 
is  so  advanced  beyond  the  acquirement 
of  its  fellows,  that  men  call  it  inspired,  the 
powers  of  imagination  and  color  are  so 
superhuman,  and  its  achievement  is  so  un- 
approached  in  its  generation.  The  great 
statesman,  we  say,  has  genius  ;  the  great 
scholar  has  gifts ;  the  poet  and  the  artist 
'have  inspiration.  When  they  are  living, 
the  glory  of  the  canvas,  the  faultless  lines 
of  the  statue,  the  imposing  and  beautiful 
effect  of  the  public  edifice,  the  dominant 
effects  of  human  intellectual  greatness,  show 
forth  a  glory  of  this  world,  a  something  in 
creation  apart  from  God,  independent  of 
nature,  and  characteristic  of  humanity  ;  this 
I  do  not  condemn.  It  must  speak  to  the 
devout  soul  of  the  wonderfulness  of  the 
human  heart  in  its  capacities  and  endow- 
ment, and  of  the  heavenly  begetting  of  the 
human  soul :  — 

"  The  soul  that  rises  with  us,  our  Hfe's  star, 
Hath  had  elsewhere  its  setting, 
And  Cometh  from  afar." 


CI?e  Secular  Spirit.  37 

It  is,  however,  possible  to  regard  the 
works  of  man  independently  from  the  motive, 
the  moment,  and  the  environment.  We 
have  the  glorious  resultant  left  clear  and 
well-discerned  to  mortal  eyes.  But  here  the 
world  spirit  shuts  itself  to  this  contemplation 
of  the  achievements  of  the  ages^  and  we  see 
men  give  themselves  to  earnest  study  of  the 
biography  of  heroes,  who  do  not  devote  one 
moment  of  the  years  to  thoughts  of  God  or 
higher  thought  of  duty.  Then  comes  a 
deification  of  human  intellect  and  a  constant 
laudation  of  the  gigantic  works  from  men's 
hands.  The  world  age  is  now  in  a  condition 
to  appeal  to  men's  sympathies  and  to  se- 
duce their  wills  through  the  aesthetic  and 
finer  senses  ;  they  have  not  God  in  all  their 
thoughts.  Some  such  apprehension  of 
earthly  glory  may  have  colored  the  pure 
vision  of  the  Son  of  God  when,  for  purposes 
of  human  redemption,  Satan  tempted  Him 
and  unfolded  to  Him  the  kingdoms  of  the 
world  in  all  their  glory.  The  highest  re- 
wards of  intellectual  greatness,  namely, 
that  consciousness  of  superiority,  which, 
however  slight,  pampers  the  weak  vanity  of 
small  souls,  and  which  in  all  its  fullness  great 
souls  are  not  insensible  to,  and  that  added 
sense  of  world    consciousness   in    which   the 


38         HetD  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

world  vaunts  itself  as  free  from  God  and 
transcending  Him,  that  fullness  of  life  and  be- 
ing* when  God  is  esteemed  afar  off  and  ex- 

o 

istence /^-r  5^is  assumed,  was  the  prize  which 
Satan  offered,  and  which  the  Son  of  God, 
though  tempted  sorely,  put  aside.  Milton,  in 
"  Paradise  Lost,"  describes  such  a  world 
consciousness :  — 

*'  High  on  a  throne  of  royal  state,  which  far 
Outshone  the  wealth  of  Ormus  and  of  Ind, 
Or  where  the  gorgeous  East  with  richest  hand 
Show  'rs  on  her  kings  barbaric  pearl  and  gold, 
Satan  exalted  sat,  by  merit  raised 
To  that  bad  eminence.   ... 

And  by  success  untaught 
His  proud  imaginations  thus  displayed. 
Powers  and  Dominions,  Deities  of  heav  'n. 
For  since  no  deep  within  her  gulf  can  hold 
Immortal  vigor,  though  oppressed  and  fallen, 
I  give  not  heav'n  for  lost :  from  this  descent 
Celestial  virtues  rising  will  appear 
More  glorious  and  more  dread." 

The  world  consciousness  of  hell  is  after  all 
the  world  consciousness  of  earth  which  exalts 
itself  against  God.  The  deification  of  dead 
heroes  among  the  savage  tribes  of  Africa,  the 
worship  of  ancestors  in  China,  the  deifica- 
tion of  both  ancestors  and  heroes  in  ancient 


C{?e  Secular  Spirit  39 

Greece  and  Rome,  —  all  testify  how  the  world 
spirit  under  different  conditions  lifts  its  head 
against  the  kingdom  of  God.  In  those  coun- 
tries where  the  low  degree  of  civilization  has 
precluded  the  elevation  of  the  world  spirit  to 
a  more  exalted  form  and  culture,  it  remains 
where  it  was  centuries  ago,  and  we  may  study 
it  in  its  native  seats  to-day,  and  learn  some- 
thing of  the  darkness  of  the  human  imagina- 
tion as  it  exalts  itself  against  the  Supreme. 
But  in  those  nations  that  reach  a  higher 
level  of  intellectual  life  we  find  a  more  per- 
fect apprehension  of  the  glory  of  this  world 
and  a  greater  exaltation  of  human  achieve- 
ment. Lysander,  returning  to  Sparta  after 
the  overthrow  of  Athens,  was  sung  by  the 
poets  and  worshiped  as  a  heathen  god.  Al- 
exander the  Great  became  so  intoxicated 
with  the  full  measure  of  the  glory  of  the 
world  which  he  enjoyed,  that  he  insisted 
upon  the  reverence  of  a  deity  from  his  court- 
iers and  generals.  So  much  has  history  left 
us  of  the  culmination  of  the  esteem  of  Greek 
genius  for  itself  and  its  age.  But  in  Rome, 
where  the  human  intellect  under  the  blessing 
of  God  attained  its  most  magnificent  propor- 
tions, we  find  Caesar  voted  by  the  senate, — 
after  the  campaign  in  Africa,  which  firmly 


40         Hen?  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

established  him  on  the  throne,  —  a  statue 
with  the  inscription,  ''  Caesar  the  demi-god," 
temples  erected  to  his  **  clemency,"  where 
his  worship  was  celebrated,  and  his  image 
borne  with  those  of  other  gods  at  festivals 
and  laid  with  theirs  on  the  altar.  When  by 
the  senate  Caesar  was  formally  declared  a 
god,  the  emperor  then  ruling,  Augustus,  was 
declared  by  courtiers  to  be  inspired  by  the 
Deity,  and  in  remoter  parts  of  the  Roman 
empire,  temples  were  rising  to  his  divinity. 
And  I  have  only  tithed  them  ;  sixty  human 
beings  were  deified  by  the  Roman  state,  from 
Caesar  to  Constantine.  And  worst  of  all  was 
Nero,  who  by  his  terrible  cruelties,  animal 
sensuousness,  demoniacal  debaucheries,  and 
inhuman  persecutions,  earned  the  appella- 
tion of  antichrist,  the  wild  beast  from  the 
abyss,  and  was  the, representative  to  the  early 
church  of  the  great  red  dragon,  —  this  man 
was  called  on  coins  **  the  Saviour  of  the 
world!'  greeted  by  crowds  as  a  god,  sacri- 
ficed to  on  altars  in  the  streets  along  which 
he  walked,  and  declared  by  the  poets  a  deity 
of  the  first  rank.  But  modern  examples  are 
not  wanting.  In  1792,  during  the  Jacobin 
revolution  which  declared  atheism  the  true 
religion  and  indiscriminate  murder  the  hand- 


CF?e  Secular  Spirit.  41 

maiden  of  liberty,  the  commune  of  Paris,  at 
a  festival  in  the  ancient  church  of  Notre 
Dame,  enthroned  a  shameless  prostitute  as 
the  "Goddess  of  Reason."  And  last  of  all, 
we  cannot  fail  to  notice  that  essential  deifi- 
cation of  the  celebrated  philosopher,  Auguste 
Comte,  by  the  philosophical  sect  which  he 
founded. 

I  have  striven  to  give  thus  some  impres- 
sion of  the  external  nature  of  the  kingdom  of 
darkness,  to  show  its  reality,  and  that  it  has 
a  history  on  earth.  I  appeal  to  the  memory 
of  your  hearts,  if  in  hours  of  temptation  you 
have  not  been  consciousof  the  glamour  which 
attaches  to  the  things  of  earth,  as  over  against 
the  kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteousness  .'* 
And  what  is  this  kingdom  of  our  heavenly 
Father,  which  we  are  to  pray  shall  be  estab- 
lished ?  I  ask  you  to  notice  its  lowliness  and 
difference  in  mission.  Is  there  pomp  and 
ceremony  in  it,  a  prescribed  ritual,  a  robed 
clergy,  and  gothic  house  filled  with  a  dim  re- 
ligious light  through  glass  of  beautiful  color 
that  speaks  the  master-hand  of  the  artist  ? 
and  does  the  swelling  music  through  the  dim 
aisles  seem  the  seraphic  voice  of  heavenly 
song  by  angel  choirs  ?  Then  know  that 
though  faith  may  live  along  with  this  min- 


42  Hetr>  (Eoncepts  of  Olb  Dogmas. 

istry  to  the  aesthetic  feelings,  there  is  not 
of  necessity  one  particle  of  faith  in  it  such 
as  shall  make  the  worshipers  true  members 
of  the  kingdom  of  God.  Does  earthly  king- 
ship covet  the  title  of  defender  of  the  faith  ? 
Though  that  sovereign  may  be  a  precious 
Christian  queen,  who  graces  the  nobility  of 
her  blood  by  the  purity  of  her  Christian  life, 
know  that  the  power  that  wields  the  scepter 
and  the  sword  is  not  able  to  make  a  single 
soul  righteous,  or  blot  out  the  iniquity  of  a 
single  transgression.  Does  the  human  in- 
tellect vaunt  itself  over  its  achievements  ? 
Know  that,  unaided  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  it 
can  never  fathom  the  depths  of  its  own  sin. 
But  the  first  note  of  its  creed  is  death  to  the 
soul  filled  with  the  worldly  spirit :  "Lord,  I 
repent;  do  thou  forgive;"  and  every  subse- 
quent step  of  that  life  is  a  shaping  of  heart 
in  its  innermost  passions  into  the  likeness  of 
Him  who  set  all  the  temptations  of  earth  at 
naught,  and  took  upon  himself  the  death  of 
a  vile  criminal  at  the  hands  of  brutal  sol- 
diery, amid  the  plaudits  of  a  Jewish  mob,  in 
order  that  the  glory  of  another  might  be 
made  manifest,  even  the  glory  of  the  eternal 
Father. 


GOD  THE  ARBITER  OF  DESTINY. 

"  He  said  unto  theni^  It  is  not  yours  to  know 
the  times  or  seasons,  which  the  Father  hath 
kept  in  His  own  power.'''' — Acts  i : '/. 

SOME  students  have  seen  a  rebuke  in  this 
answer  of  Christ.  And  indeed  it  may  be 
a  rebuke,  though  just  its  exact  meaning  is 
hard  to  define.  Granted  He  does  mean  to 
reprove  them,  strangely  telling  commentary 
this  upon  their  slowness  to  believe  and  per- 
versity to  receive  of  Him  who  spake  as  never 
man  spake,  that  in  this  last  interview  before 
the  ascension,  Christ  was  compelled  to  give  a 
stinging  blow  of  censure,  reminding  them 
that  they  were  under  His  tutelage,  and  that 
it  was  His  duty  as  teacher  to  instruct  them  in 
what  it  was  fitting  they  should  know,  rather 
than  in  what  they  desired  to  learn.  "  Surely 
He  scorneth  the  scorners ;  but  He  giveth 
grace  unto  the  lowly  "  (Prov.  3  :  34). 

You  will  remember  that  back  in  Christ's 
ministry,  on  Wednesday  before  Passion 
Week,  just  fifty  days  previous  to  our  text, — 
for  now  He  is  standing  on  the  brow  of  the 
Mount  of  Olives  and  is  soon  to  be  caught  up 

(43) 


44         Icett)  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

into  heaven, —  there  had  been  similar  ques- 
tioning on  the  part  of  the  disciples  concern- 
ing His  second  coming,  then  on  the  Mount  of 
Olives  as  now,  only  then  overlooking  the 
Temple,  prophecy  concerning  the  throwing 
down  of  whose  stones  led  up  to  the  question, 
privately  asked  by  a  few,  '*  Tell  us  when  shall 
these  things  be."  In  the  first  instance  His 
second  coming  and  the  end  of  the  world  is 
had  in  view  ;  in  the  second,  the  restoration  of 
the  kingdom  to  Israel,  both  in  my  opinion 
being  the  same  event  under  different  titles. 
Pray  notice  the  answer  in  each  case.  In  the 
former,  *'  Of  that  day  or  that  hour  knoweth  no 
one,  not  even  the  angels  in  heaven,  neither 
the  Son,  but  the  Father  ; "  in  the  latter  the 
words  of  our  text,  "It  is  not  yours  to  know 
the  times  or  seasons  which  the  Father  hath 
kept  in  His  own  power."  It  seems  to  the 
preacher  there  is  a  progress  of  knowledge  in- 
dicated here.  In  the  first  instance,  Christ 
declares  His  ignorance  as  a  bar  to  revelation, 
in  the  second  He  pleads  lack  of  jurisdiction, 
which  the  Father  hath  and  the  Father  alone. 
In  the  first  it  is,  *'  I  know  not  ; "  in  the  second 
it  is,  ''  I  can  not."  But  He  leaves  us  with  this 
declaration  of  a  divine  providence  running 
through  the  times   and   the   seasons  of  this 


®ob  tl^e  2Xxb\Ur:  of  Desttny.  45 

little  planet  we  call  the  globe  as  next  to  the 
last  words  that  He  should  ever  utter  to  the 
twelve  men  whom  He  had  chosen  to  be  wit- 
nesses of  His  life  and  sufferings,  and  preachers 
of  His  gospel. 

The  time  and  place  make  it  an  awe-inspir- 
ing theme.  The  dogma  of  our  text  is 
profound.  Its  time  and  circumstance  give 
suitable  setting  that  the  gleam  of  the  jewel 
may  be  seen  in  its  worth,  the  truth  of  which  in 
its  concept  may  well  engross  our  attention. 
Epochs  and  incidents  of  history  are  in  God's 
power.  Mahomet  and  his  epoch,  Rome  and 
her  epoch,  Napoleon  and  his  epoch,  are  all  of 
God,  and  do  not  go  beyond  His  permissive 
decrees.  In  Christ's  thought  all  is  under  His 
power.  '*  Roll  up  that  map,"  said  Pitt,  after 
the  battle  of  Austerlitz,  as  he  lay  a-dying, 
"  it  will  not  be  wanted  this  ten  years."  That 
was  man's  estimate  of  the  situation  in  1806. 
Waterloo  and  St.  Helena  were  God's  answer 
in  18 1 5.  To  every  cry  of  human  despair 
there  is  God's  answer  in  destiny,  which  He 
hath  kept  in  His  own  power.  Knox  preached 
congregations  into  fury  against  sacerdotalism, 
so  that  though  he  said  not  a  word  instigating 
to  violence,  they  left  him  on  one  or  two  occa- 
sions to  demolish  monasteries,  shatter  altars, 


46  Xt^vo  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Doc^mas. 

rend  pictures  and  vestments  ;  yet  God  guided 
the  molten  metal  of  that  reformation  period 
into  such  mould  that  Scotland  became  most 
law-abiding. 

Day  before  yesterday  anarchists  were  fight- 
ing troops  and  police  all  day  long  in  Rome 
and  Lyons.  In  European  countries  the  agi- 
tations of  the  past  have  been  within  a  gen- 
eration against  church  and  monarchy  ;  the 
unrest  of  to-day  proclaims  the  dissatisfaction 
of  laborers  with  all  governments.  The  Old 
World  has  more  of  the  dissatisfied,  but  she 
has  also  a  larger  population  per  square  acre. 
Out  of  this  chaos  shall  come  a  result,  one  of 
the  long  series  of  time,  and  its  consequent 
eventualities  which  God  has  appointed  by  His 
own  free  will.  Be  not  therefore  restive  at 
the  seeming  progress  of  this  or  that  danger- 
ous opinion,  either  in  church  or  state.  If 
God  would  destroy  the  church  by  progress 
of  opinion,  nothing  can  save  her  ;  if  He  would 
destroy  the  ship  of  state,  nothing  can  keep 
her  from  the  rocks.  We  can  do  but  little  in 
this  world  to  make  it  better,  much  less  turn 
the  tide  of  public  opinion  ;  but  God  rules, 
and  is  bringing  His  own  designs  to  pass  on 
earth  as  well  as  in  heaven  ;  statesmen  are 
but  pawns  upon  the  chess-board  of  the  world  ; 
He  moveth  them  as  He  will.     All  times  are 


(Sob  tE?e  2Crbtter  of  Destiny.  47 

in  His  hand  ;  they  shall  not  flinch.  All  his- 
tory is  therefore  but  God's  working  with  hu- 
manity, as  geology  is  His  working  upon  the 
material  universe,  and  as  chemistry  and 
botany  are  kaleidoscopic  views  of  God's 
handiwork  in  present  events. 

There  was  an  ancient  theory  that  each 
cycle  of  history  is  but  a  reproduction  of  the 
one  just  past.  The  preacher  would  not 
waste  breath  disputing  it,  but  he  would  call 
your  attention  to  this  :  that  according  to 
Jesus  Christ,  God  is  the  one  absolutely  un- 
changeable condition  of  human  history,  the 
source  of  its  unity,  the  arbiter  of  its  destiny. 
He,  therefore,  is  the  best  historian  who  reads 
best  God's  teaching  in  the  book  of  life.  He 
who  reads  only  man's  works,  touches  only 
circumstantials  of  the  handiwork  of  the  Un- 
seen. This  history  of  the  world,  a  never-end- 
ing panorama,  is  the  history  with  which  the 
religious  concerns  of  mankind  are  to  be 
identified.  The  gospel  was  not  to  be  the 
sum  and  substance  of  all  things,  in  the  sense 
that  having  reached  its  development,  earth 
had  come  to  heavenly  fruitage,  and  the  globe 
must  needs  cease  turning  on  its  axis.  But 
instead  the  gospel  of  Christ  is  subordinate 
to  the  providence  of  God  the  Father. 

One  might  foresee  from  this  statement  of 


48         Hem  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas, 

our  Lord's  the  failure  of  the  great  Roman 
Church  to  make  the  pontiff  of  even  her  vast 
communion  the  head  of  national  governments. 
Certainly  as  Protestants  we  think  that  it  is 
in  keeping  with  the  modern  idea  that  all 
the  relations  between  government  and  church 
should  be  those  of  tolerant  protection.  We 
can  understand  how  it  was  that  the  Scotch 
and  English  Puritans  had  a  work  to  do  in 
this  country  with  their  lofty  ideals  of  duty, 
along  with  the  Dutch  who  came  to  trade 
in  peltries,  and  the  Maryland  Catholics  who 
came  for  toleration.  All  were  merged  in  the 
epoch  ;  each  one  played  his  part  well  under 
God.  Fully  as  we  may  be  convinced  that 
one  had  a  nobler  mission  than  others,  yet 
we  are  conscious  that  the  best  each  could 
offer  was  used  by  Him  who  ruleth  the  times 
and  seasons,  and  hath  kept  all  within  His 
own  control  from  the  foundation  of  the  world. 
We  can  understand  how  it  is  that  piety  and 
the  world  often  clasp  hands  on  many  great 
subjects,  as  when  the  immoral,  vain,  head- 
long, foolish  humanist,  Ulrich  von  Hutten, 
united  with  the  pure,  lion-like  Luther  and 
the  courageous,  rational  Zwingli,  also  good 
and  pure,  —  it  was  camp-follower,  monk,  and 
pastor,  —  against  Rome  and  her  mastery  over 


<5ob  tf?e  Arbiter  of  Destiny,  49 

human  life  and  conscience  ;  or  as  when  Theo- 
dore Parker,  Ossowatomie  Brown,  and  William 
Lloyd  Garrison, — Rationalist,  Calvinist,  and 
infidel, — unitedly  fought  slavery  intrenched 
in  high  places  and  condoned  by  the  sleeping 
conscience  of  a  free  people.  In  the  East, 
where  there  are  laws  prohibiting  the  liquor 
traffic,  it  is  no  uncommon  thing  for  all  de- 
nominations, liberal  and  orthodox,  to  unite 
with  atheist  neighbors,  not  even-handedly, 
but  unite  nevertheless  to  suppress  open  sale, 
all  agreed  that  this  thing  is  of  the  devil  and 
no  good. 

We  serve  Christ,  and  the  output  of  our  life 
is  merged  in  humanity  ;  we  and  they  are  one. 
We  are  Christian  in  heart ;  we  are  human  in 
species.  Our  obligation  is  to  God  ;  our  life  is 
with  men.  Duty  must  be  met  at  the  bar  of 
a  human  conscience  in  the  presence  of  an 
omniscient  God  ;  service  must  be  rendered 
on  the  theater  we  call  human  life.  There  is 
no  obscuration  of  the  Father's  jurisdiction  by 
reason  of  the  incarnation,  for  Christ  took 
upon  himself  the  form  of  man.  We  can  un- 
derstand that  readily,  but  further,  Christ  ad- 
mits that  His  mission  does  not  affect  God's 
headship  over  human  nature  and  all  its  af- 
fairs. There  was  a  cross  on  Calvary  which 
4 


50  Xl^vo  Concepts  of  Vlb  Dogmas. 

had  a  bleeding  sacrifice  for  you  and  me,  mak- 
ing an  atonement,  alike  of  wondrous  pathos 
and  inestimable  dignity,  the  efficiency  of 
which  is  our  sole  hope  of  redemption.  But 
that  sacrifice  left  undone  many  things  which 
may  be  called  the  wheel  of  natural  life.  It 
released  us  from  the  power  of  death,  but  it 
did  not  abolish  the  death  of  the  body  or  the 
pains  of  disease.  Every  weakness  of  the 
flesh  is  full  to  overflowing.  The  cup  of  hu- 
manity's tears  is  wrung  full,  morning,  noon, 
and  night  ;  the  freshness  of  the  morning  is 
breathed  on  brows  hot  with  fever,  and 
parched  throats  are  thirsting  interminably 
for  cool  water  that  goes  babbling  by  from 
springs  as  old  as  the  hills. 

Our  Christian  life  may  give  such  admirable 
Stoicism  under  pain,  that  we  may  bear  up 
better, —  plain  living  and  high  thinking  may 
save  us  many  aches  and  pains  ;  but  the  body 
must  suffer ;  for  the  times  and  seasons  are 
within  the  authority  of  the  Father.  Life  is 
lengthened  a  third  or  half  under  the  civili- 
zation brought  to  pass  by  the  teachings  of 
Jesus  ;  and  our  lives  are  so  happy,  and  the 
boon  of  existence  is  so  sweet,  that  we  bless 
God  for  every  additional  hour.  It  is  a  thing 
to   be   prayed   for  and,   if  won,  joyfully   ac- 


(5ob  tf?e  Titb'xkv  of  DesttriY*  51 

cepted.  But  the  amount  of  pain  necessary 
to  close  our  lives  is,  so  far  as  we  know,  a  con- 
stant factor.  There  are  the  losses  by  death. 
You  who  are  older  know  best  what  this 
means.  But  toward  men  outside  our  families 
we  also  have  compassions.  It  is  like  a  line 
in  battle,  one  falls  on  the  right  and  one  on 
the  left.  They  were  Christians,  but  the  times 
and  seasons  are  in  God's  hands.  They  drop 
out  so  frequently,  we  begin  to  say,  '*  Why 
am  I  left  ?  This  man  was  healthy  and  more 
needed  than  I."  There  is  an  adage,  '*  TAe 
good  die you7ig''  However  much  hearts  may 
bleed,  there  is  the  consolation  of  a  divine 
purpose  shrouded  in  the  mystery  of  being, 
which  purpose  must  be  benevolent,  for  God 
is  good. 

According  to  Christ,  the  great  purposes  of 
revealed  religion  must  wait  upon  God's  provi- 
dence. That  providence  ushered  us  into  be- 
ing, and  keeps  us  here.  It  shall  lead  us 
forth  again,  let  us  hope,  to  a  nobler  life  prom- 
ised through  faith.  We  do  not  realize  the 
awfulness  of  every  tick  of  the  watch,  which 
measures  God's  will  of  time  and  sense  for  us. 
Perhaps  it  is  well  we  do  not.  As  God  is  su- 
preme, he  is  a  good  object  of  faith.  I  am 
weak  and  helpless  under  Thy  chastisements, 


52  Hem  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

faulty  and  fickle  in  my  best  judgments,  a 
creature  of  day  dreams  shot  here  and  there 
with  the  bright  colors  of  illusive  hopes  and 
debasing  prosperity.  O  God !  dear  God ! 
who  keepest  times  and  seasons  within  Thine 
own  power,  my  heart  and  my  flesh  crieth  out 
for  the  living  God.  O  Christ !  Saviour  of 
sinners,  may  Thy  intercession  and  sacrifice 
avail  that  my  spirit  fail  not  of  strength  be- 
fore the  appointed  time  of  deliverance  comes, 
when  the  Father  hath  determined  that  I 
must  die. 


CHRIST  THE  MIRACLE  WORKER. 

"  yesus  of  Nazareth,  a  Juan  approved  of  God 
unto  you  by  jfiighty  works  and  wonders  and 
signs,  .  .  .  ye  by  the  hand  of  lawless  men 
did  crucify  and  slay.''''—  Acts  2  :  22^  2j. 

THE  Apostle  argues  that  Christ  was  ap- 
proved of  God  because  He  wrought  won- 
ders. Strange,  is  it  not,  that  which  was 
an  argument  in  the  first  century  should  be- 
come a  hindrance  and  stumbling-block  in  the 
nineteenth,  and  that  the  emphasis  of  religion 
should  have  changed  poles  from  stress  upon 
the  supernatural  to  insistence  upon  the  eth- 
ical ?  They  said  Christ  wrought  wonders. 
We  say  Christ  wrought  righteousness.  But 
yet  the  ethics  of  the  first  church  super- 
abounded  ;  the  reason  why  Christianity  con- 
quered the  world  was  that  Christianity  was 
able  to  prove  to  the  world  that  it  had  better 
morals  than  that  world.  Miracles,  then,  were 
not  ever  the  sum  of  Christian  faith  ;  they 
were  simply  decoys  to  arouse  the  attention  ; 
not  meant  as  the  real  proofs,  only  first  proofs 
to  awaken  the  understanding,  that  the  abso- 
lute demonstration  to  mind  and  heart  might 

(53) 


54         Heu?  Concepts  of  £>lb  Dogmas, 

follow.  May  they  not  be  like  irons  driven 
into  the  crevices  of  the  precipice,  by  which 
one  may  mount,  of  no  further  service,  the 
cliff  once  passed,  but  never  to  be  displaced, 
as  there  always  must  be  some  climbers-up 
that  way.  So  it  happens  we  in  this  nine- 
teenth century  are  still  clinging  to  the 
miraculous  in  religion. 

Most  religious  philosophers  are  wont  to 
call  attention  to  the  fact  that  Christianity 
shares  this  peculiarity  with  all  other  great 
religions.  We  must  note,  however,  that  by 
reason  of  its  written  memorials  of  her  past, 
Christianity  hath  from  the  first  had  an 
accurate  knowledge  of  her  history  denied 
to  other  beliefs.  It  does  not  affect  the 
truth  of  Christian  miracles  which  were  re- 
ceived by  devout  minds  and  handed  down 
soon  in  written  documents  that  other  faiths 
have  had  miracle  myths.  The  growth  of 
myth  in  the  New  Testament  must  have  taken 
place,  the  scholars  tells  us,  before  65  A.  D., 
the  date  of  the  first  Gospel  (Mark),  and  were 
quoted  by  church  Fathers  within  the  first 
century  after  Christ's  death.  We  have  no 
right  to  throw  away  the  miracles  of  our  Book 
because  of  the  growth  of  mock  m  iraclesin 
theirs.     We  have,  however,  a  right  to  throw 


Cl^nst  tf?e  2TttracIe  Xt)or!er.  55 

them  away  when  scholarship  is  able  to  prove 
that  any  one  of  them  did  not  occur. 

I  have  always  held  that  the  miraculous  side 
of  the  Bible  was  in  large  part  due  to  contact 
with  superstitiously  wrought  faith  and  to  the 
credulity  of  the  populace  among  which  it  was 
first  preached.  The  adherents  of  other  faiths 
would  deny  its  credibility  were  these  lacking, 
and  would  be  enabled  to  shake  the  fidelity 
of  many  of  its  members.  I  adduce  this  as 
something  always  to  be  taken  into  account, 
rather  than  as  something  novel. 

Christ  wrought  a  revelation  in  an  ancient 
faith  and  national  life.  That  people  were  re- 
ligious and  patriotic  in  an  eminent  degree  ; 
they  were  learned  too,  and  acute  ;  they  had 
a  wonderful  literature  in  their  sacred  books, 
a  wonderful  conception  of  the  Divine  Being,  a 
wonderful  solidarity  in  their  social  life,  which 
had  come  to  fixity  in  social  manners  and 
customs.  Here  comes  a  man  without  pres- 
tige, from  the  family  of  a  village  artisan,  of 
royal  blood  indeed  by  remote  descent  of  a 
throne  usurped,  but  no  more  so  than  hun- 
dreds, yea,  thousands,  of  others  who  had 
come  into  the  lengthened  antennse  of  the 
royal  genealogical  tree.  He  loosens  the 
power    of    caste    upon    multitudes,    leading 


56  Hem  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

them,  soon  after  his  death,  to  break  with 
nation,  religion,  and  party,  and  become 
known  only  as  his.  Alive,  he  split  the  peo- 
ple in  twain  again  and  again  ;  dead,  he  per- 
manently divides  the  national  life.  They 
had  been  bound  to  creed  and  nation  ;  they 
were  henceforth  bound  to  him.  Moses  had 
been  their  pride  ;  Christ  was  become  their 
glory.  They  had  heretofore  lived  for  them- 
selves ;  they  now  lived  unto  Him  only. 
Moreover,   the  contagion  spread. 

Rome,  who  had  conquered  Judea  and  held 
It  with  firmness  in  her  iron  grasp,  notwith- 
standing its  remoteness  on  the  frontiers  of 
the  empire,  herself  in  turn  was  conquered  by 
a  Jew,  and  in  spite  of  the  persecution  of 
emperors,  the  corruptions  of  the  time,  the 
contempt  of  wealth,  the  resistance  of  heathen 
learning  and  philosophy,  and  the  satire  and 
sneers  of  the  populace,  within  three  cent- 
uries, representing  the  whole  of  the  known 
civilized  world,  was  transformed  and  trans- 
muted to  new  views,  new  righteousness,  new 
forms  and  social  laws  ;  that  is,  from  polythe- 
istic heathenism,  with  its  lords  many,  to  the 
refined  speculations  of  Christianity  founded 
upon  its  doctrines  of  a  triune  Godhead  ;  from 
the  idea  of  a  state  to  be  plundered,  to  that  of 


Cl^rtst  tlfz  ITttracIe  XDorfcr,  57 

organic  society,  as  an  integral  part  of  the 
kingdom  of  God.  I  said  it  changed  its  cus- 
toms ;  so  it  did.  Its  feasts  became  Christian  ; 
the  Christian  festivals  replacing  those  as- 
signed to  each  part  of  the  year,  all  in  a  similar 
way  being  transformed  and  diverted,  divested 
of  old  ideas,  re-invested  with  new.  Sunday 
was  introduced,  and  its  observance  enforced 
by  law.  Time  was  dated  from  Christ's  death, 
whereas  before  it  had  been  computed  from 
the  foundation  of  the  Roman  city.  The  tides 
of  vice  were  rolled  back  ;  the  pontiff  had  the 
power  of  an  emperor  ;  the  priest  that  of  a 
prince.  Qualify  it  as  you  may,  a  stupendous 
miracle  has  been  delineated  by  the  church  in 
history,  and  cannot  be  effaced.  We  will  not 
follow  it  down  through  the  ages.  Its  life  is  a 
perpetual  reality,  adjusted  to  each  age,  but 
born  of  the  heart  and  mind  of  God. 

Now  was  there  no  reason  behind  this  stu- 
pendous fact  ?  As  well  say  there  is  no  beach 
below  the  tide,  no  sun  behind  the  light  of 
day.  Significance  of  all  this  is  not  chiefly, 
but  yet  it  is  significantly,  in  the  beginning. 
Could  the  mighty  impetus  which  divided 
Judaism  and  converted  Rome  have  been 
founded  on  a  fiction  ?  As  well  say  the  story 
of   how   Bonaparte   conquered    Europe   and 


58  Xttvo  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

placed  his  creatures  on  many  a  throne,  was 
a  mistake,  that  he  had  no  power  to  lead 
legions  into  battle,  no  wizard-like  strategy, 
no  magnetism  upon  men.  As  well  say  there 
has  been  no  tariff  legislation  in  America,  and 
no  theory  of  national  development  on  this 
continent,  as  to  say  that  the  miracles  of  the 
first  ages  of  the  history  of  the  church  are  not 
traceable  to  actual  and  powerful  miracles,  ac- 
companying the  life,  death,  and  resurrection 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Without  miracles 
it  is  a  mirage  to  be  dissipated  by  scrutiny  of 
the  time  in  which  they  appear.  But  the  age 
in  which  they  appeared,  believed.  The  Jew- 
ish rulers  did  not  believe  ;  the  Christ  was 
crucified  ;  His  disciples  scattered,  —  why  did 
they  believe,  except  for  signs  and  wonders 
such  as  convinced  their  reason,  in  spite  of  all 
unbelief  and  caV'il,  that  the  Jewish  rulers 
and  mob  were  wrong,  and  this  Jesus  whom 
they  crucified  was  both  Lord  and  Christ  ?  If 
miracles  were  not  in  the  Book,  we  could  not 
understand  how  faith  came  into  being,  and 
the  church  began  her  life.  The  rise  of  the 
church  is  due  to  a  conviction  of  men,  aroused 
by  the  miracles  of  the  Christ.  Before  His 
goodness  they  stood  rebuked  ;  before  His 
miracles  they  bowed.     His  righteousness  ap- 


Cl?rtst  t^e  VTiivack  tDorfer.  59 

palled   them  ;    His  miracles  convinced  them  ; 
as  in  life,  so  after  death. 

Though  this  pulpit  cannot  see  how  the  in- 
tegrity of  Christian  things  can  exist  without 
miracles,  it  does  not  follow  that  miracles  are 
to  be  viewed  in  precisely  the  same  light  as 
of  old,  when  they  were  wrought.  To  them 
every  silent  act  out  of  the  ordinary  course 
was  instinct  with  God.  To-day  the  Chris- 
tian thinker  sees  God  here,  but  studies  His 
work  to  see  how  He  works.  He  has  been 
trained  to  this  in  his  investigation  of  or- 
dinary nature.  As  to-day  nothing  happens 
above  law  or  beside  law,  and  contradictions 
are  formal  and  not  real,  the  sudden  comet 
being  as  much  under  law  as  the  finest  grain 
of  seashore  sand  on  the  hard  beach  of  the 
ocean,  so  owing  to  our  scientific  education 
we  look  upon  the  strange  as  a  new  aspect 
of  the  formal,  and  another  expression  of  the 
output  of  God  in  law.  It  is  not  wrong,  there- 
fore, to  frame  theories  as  to  scientific  relation 
of  Christ  to  the  wonders  wrought,  that  we 
may  say  how  He  did  it.  It  is  not  necessary 
for  the  validity  of  the  miracle  that  we  stand 
awestruck,  as  did  the  early  disciples,  dumbly 
unconscious  of  anything  save  awed  amaze- 
ment.    That  it  fitted  its  time  is  thus  made 


60         Hem  Concepts  of  PIb  Dogmas, 

most  obvious.  To  you  and  me  it  means 
hardly  more  than  many  a  wonder  done  in 
the  natural  world,  such,  for  instance,  as  the 
persistence  of  every  flower  after  its  kind,  so 
that  it  is  three  or  five  parted,  according  to 
its  plan,  is  green  or  red,  and  has  similarly 
veined  and  shaped  sepal,  petal,  or  involucre, 
and  sends  out  leaf  stems  in  precisely  the 
same  way.  The  real  wonder  is  the  conjunc- 
tion of  all  the  events  of  His  time  with  the 
vicissitudes  of  the  God-man's  personality. 

The  great  Napoleon  was  wont,  at  the  crit- 
ical moment  of  battle,  watch  in  hand,  to  await 
the  booming  of  Soult's,  Ney's,  or  Grouchy's 
cannon,  knowing  that  if  they  met  the  ap- 
pointment, his  strategy  had  met  fruition.  As 
this  act  of  Bonaparte  showed  a  master-mind, 
so  God's  timing  of  all  things,  making  the 
wonders  of  the  life  of  Christ  focus  in  the  per- 
son of  Christ,  shows  mastery  of  destiny. 
Any  one  of  these  acts  might  have  happened 
alone,  and  been  dismissed  as  either  prodigy 
or  law  work  ;  but  concentrated  into  the  life- 
time of  the  Eternal  Son,  following  attentive 
upon  His  acts  and  obeying  the  word  of  His 
life,  we  have  a  most  startling  correlation  of 
motive  in  God  with  revelation  to  men  upon 
earth.     This  I  claim  to  be  the  heart  and  life 


Cl?rt5t  tl^e  irtiracle  IDorfer.  61 

of  the  wonders  of  Christ's  ministry,  and  is  no 
destruction  of  the  miraculous.  The  scientific 
spirit  is  therefore  revealing  the  full  nature  of 
miracle,  and  by  making-  it  understood,  is  per- 
forming the  same  service  to  the  miraculous 
in  the  Gospels  which  it  is  doing  in  unravel- 
ing the  knotted  threads  of  natural  law,  and 
showing  that  there  is  no  labyrinth  in  nature 
but  what  has  its  clue,  which,  taken,  leads  out 
at  the  very  gates  of  the  palace  of  God. 

For  instance,  the  mind-reader  of  to-day,  in 
catching  involuntary  movements  of  the  eye, 
hand,  and  other  parts  of  the  body,  is  making 
plain  along  what  line  Christ's  superhuman 
endowment  lay  when  He  read  the  thoughts  o^ 
men.  If  there  is  a  natural  hypnotic  control 
of  one  mind  by  another  (?)  by  which  nervous 
disease  may  be  relieved  by  gifted  men,  we 
know  that  a  slight  increase  of  similar  powers 
would  explain  the  processes  of  many  New 
Testament  miracles.  When  men  of  strong 
bodies  and  capable  of  great  physical  endur- 
ance in  our  own  time,  begroomed  and  be 
watered,  fast  forty  days  and  more,  the  forty- 
days-and-nights  fast  of  our  Lord  bespeaks 
more  of  the  intensity  of  His  struggle  against 
sin,  who  is  the  holy  Saviour  of  His  people, 
than  of  angelic   ministries ;   when   the   con- 


62         Hem  Concepts  of  £>lb  Dogmas. 

test  ended,  the  eternal  Son  had  established 
forever  the  chastity  of  His  spirit.  Since  sur- 
geons in  rare  cases  find  patients  in  the  hos- 
pitals sweating  blood  drops  in  the  extremity 
of  the  anguish  of  a  human  spirit  under  pain, 
we  can  better  appreciate  the  depths  of  the 
human  nature  of  our  Lord  by  means  of  the 
acuteness  of  His  shrinking  from  the  foreseen 
suffering,  and  the  fullness  of  His  heroic  nature 
that  flinched  not  through  it  all. 

These  are  illustrations  of  what  I  mean  by 
the  illuminating  character  of  modern  scien- 
tific research  upon  miraculous  things  in  the 
New  Testament.  It  does  not  destroy  the 
miraculous,  it  rather  makes  it  alive.  For 
the  old  idea  of  miracle  is  dead  to  you  and 
me,  except  as  we  view  it  through  modern 
eyes,  and  explain  the  wonderful  phenomena 
presented.  I  also  notice  that  miracles  are 
still  wrought,  and  it  does  not  occur  to  the 
preacher  why  the  old  miracle  should  be  dis- 
credited and  the  new  believed.  The  ship 
whose  prow  is  stove-in  by  the  iceberg 
on  the  great  banks  of  Newfoundland,  is 
providentially  saved  ;  a  few  feet  farther,  and 
the  air-tight  compartment  had  not  availed. 
A  gentleman  steps  off  a  train  to  view  a  coal- 
mine,  and   is   withdrawn   from   the   railroad 


<Zl}tist  ll^e  ITTtracIe  IDorfer.  63 

accident  ensuing, —  providentially  diverted, 
we  say.  Stambouloff  and  Beltcheff  were 
walking  home,  from  a  cabinet  council,  near  a 
public  square  in  Sofia.  In  the  dusk  the  as- 
sassin pours  the  contents  of  his  revolver 
against  Beltcheff,  thinking  he  was  the  lion- 
hearted  premier  of  Bulgaria.  God's  destiny, 
we  say,  preserved  the  protector  of  the  liber- 
ties of  the  new-born  Danubian  state.  The 
Duke  of  Westminster  devoted  the  earnings 
of  the  celebrated  Ormonde  to  the  erection  of 
a  beautiful  church  near  Eton  Hall,  perhaps 
signifying  by  this  act  that  God  disposed  the 
chances  on  the  turf  in  his  favor  ;  just  as 
at  ancient  Lyons  the  Romans  put  upon 
a  tavern  door  recently  discovered,  **  Here 
Mercury  promises  you  gain,  Apollo  health, 
and  Septumanus  good  fare  and  a  good  bed." 
If,  then,  the  most  trivial  accidents  of  our 
time  are  to  be  accounted  as  dropped  out 
from  God's  hand  by  His  will,  so  that  even  we 
may  pray  for  His  blessing  as  we  gamble, — 
the  preacher  very  much  doubts  whether  there 
is  not  a  time  when  every  gambler  prays, — 
then  who  are  we  that  we  deny  God's  power 
to  bring  to  pass  a  series  of  such  providential 
dispensations,  some  of  adversity,  others  of 
prosperity,  but  all  of  which  together  in  this 


64  HetD  Concepts  of  £)16  Dogmas. 

life  of  the  Nazarene  as  in  your  life  and  mine 
make  up  that  total  of  what  we  are  and  what 
we  hope  to  be,  giving  Him  distinguishment 
among  the  sons  of  men  as  a  wonder  worker, 
having  power  with  God  ? 

I  have  called  attention  to  the  fact  that 
apostolic  preaching  made  acceptance  of  the 
miraculous  the  first  step  of  conviction.  I 
want  to  add  further  the  thought  that  they 
who  accepted  miracles  believed  and  were 
saved.  Somebody  every  now  and  then  takes 
me  into  a  corner  and  says,  "  I  do  not  be- 
lieve this  or  that  miracle.  I  cannot  feel 
it  is  true.  I  accept  the  Bible,  all  but  this." 
Now  the  preacher  is  one  of  those  persons 
who  perceives  clearly  that  belief  in  God  and 
love  for  man  is  the  main  thing,  but  belief  in 
God  and  love  for  man  with  consciousness  of 
salvation  have  ever  gone  hand  in  hand  with 
belief  in  the  miraculous.  Of  old,  men  denied, 
turned  their  back  upon  Christ,  and  died  in 
their  sins  ;  to-day,  as  ever,  men  deny  mira- 
cles, turn  their  back  upon  Christ,  and  die  in 
their  sins.  Of  old,  men  believed  and  were 
saved  ;  to-day  men  believe  and  are  saved. 
But  says  some  one,  *'  It  is  hard  to  believe." 
You  are  mistaken.  The  hardest  and  most 
injurious  thing  in  modern  intellectual  life  is 


CI?rtst  il}z  miracle  XDorfer.  65 

to  deny  on  simple  assumption  anything  as- 
serted in  God's  book.  For  one  miracle  is 
nothing  more  or  less,  if  you  prove  it  false. 
But  all  miracles  are  thrown  when  you  relin- 
quish one  simply  because  **  I  am  a  mind  to." 
I  am  talking  of  God's  blessing  the  heart  and 
mind  of  a  man  through  faith,  and  I  say,  if 
you  want  peace,  **  Believe,  and  thou  shalt 
be  saved." 


MIRACLES  AS   RELATED   TO   MOD- 
ERN  LIFE. 

"  And  God  wrought  special  miracles  by  the 
hands  of  Paul:  insonnich  that  unto  the  sick 
were  carried  away  from  his  body  handker- 
chiefs or  aprons,  and  the  diseases  departed 
from  them,  and  the  evil  spirits  went  out.^^ — 
Acts  ig  :  ii,  J2. 

HANDKERCHIEFS  and  napkins  which 
had  come  in  contact  with  Paul's  body, 
were  borne  away,  and  the  sick  were  healed. 
Now  a  fair  treatment  of  this  narrative  de- 
mands that  we  shall  accept  it  as  it  is.  We 
would  like  to  believe  there  was  a  volition  of 
Paul,  but  he  may  not  have  been  conscious 
that  the  cloths  were  taken.  Christ,  you  will 
remember,  had  the  hem  of  His  garment 
touched  by  the  woman  in  the  crowd,  and 
turned,  conscious  that  power  had  gone  forth 
from  Him.  Still,  of  the  millions  that  touched 
the  Son  of  man,  only  one  of  them  all  was 
healed  ;  one  was  in  such  state  that  virtue 
went  forth  at  the  touch  of  faith.  In  this  in- 
stance alone  in  the  life  of  Paul  is  there 
similar  unconsciousness  of  the  endowed  per- 
(66) 


irttracles  as  Kelateb  to  ITTobern  Ctfe.     67 

sonality  concerning  the  fullness  of  his  mi- 
raculous gifts.  Once  in  the  history  of  Peter 
the  sick  were  placed  where  his  shadow 
might  fall. 

These  few  instances  were  given,  per- 
chance, that  we  could  not  rationalize  them 
away.  We  are  reducing  miracles  to  the 
minimum,  explaining  them  by  natural  law, 
finding  in  them  a  higher  law,  not  seeing  in 
them  God's  will  regnant,  and  forgetful  of  a 
divine  personality  which  can  break  through 
the  ordinary  restraints  of  natural  law  as 
easily  as  an  elephant  can  brush  aside  the 
rabbit-snares  boys  set  in  the  jungles  ;  and  as 
commonly  does  it,  as  men  by  intuition  and 
experience  enter  into  their  birthright  of 
power  and  dominion  over  nature,  and  tear 
natural  law  in  pieces.  For  instance,  there 
are  beautiful  trees  growing  in  a  fertile,  well- 
watered  soil ;  dale  and  hill  are  an  oasis  of 
beauty,  so  superlative  are  they  of  their  kind  ; 
when  the  rosy  dawn  lights  the  skies,  God's 
heavens  seem  to  kiss  them,  as  in  the  morning 
mothers  kiss  children  half  awakened  from 
their  slumbers.  But  man  finds  in  the  bowels 
of  the  earth  the  yellow  glitter  of  the  pre- 
cious copper  ;  he  digs  for  it ;  he  builds  his 
furnaces   that   forth  from  their  livid   lips   of 


t)8         Hctt)  Concepts  of  Olb  Dogmas. 

flame  he  may  take  their  liquid  treasure,  ''pu- 
rified seven  times  as  by  fire."  That  dross 
which  was  there  by  law  of  nature  he  has 
purged,  and  it  is  gone, —  behold  a  miracle, — 
and  the  gases  which  he  has  generated  in  sepa- 
rating the  metal  from  its  dross,  have  been 
a  quiet  pestilence  for  miles  in  area,  to  flower 
and  shrub  and  tree  ;  the  principle  of  life  in 
seed  and  flower,  in  grass  and  shrub,  is  gone. 
The  decaying  tree-trunks  of  the  monarchs  of 
the  forest  are  plaintive  witnesses  of  the  de- 
struction which  man  has  wrought  when  he  has 
laid  his  hand  on  natural  law,  and  by  the 
powers  bestowed  upon  him  hath  brought  the 
desolations  of  the  desert  upon  a  blooming 
garden  of  God. 

Now  the  question  is,  whether  man  shall 
thus  be  a  bull  in  the  china  shop  of  nature, 
destroying  objects,  and  rending  law  in  tat- 
ters, while  God  is  tied  hand  and  foot  in  the 
world  which  He  has  made  ?  and  shall  we  stand 
aghast  when  we  see  evidence  of  that  same 
interference  with  natural  law  by  God  with 
which  on  the  part  of  man  we  are  so  familiar  ? 
—  a  familiarity  that  has  bred  contempt  and 
which  has  in  its  turn  blinded  itself  in  stupid 
egotism  to  the  matchless  power  of  God.  But 
I  will  state  it  again. 


ZTtiracIes  as  Helateb  to  ITTobern  €tfe.     69 

Here  is  a  midget  of  a  man,  so  puny  that 
he  might  well  fear  lest  the  Deity,  chang- 
ing the  grapple  of  the  belted  crust  enswathing 
mother  earth,  might  topple  off  a  crag  and 
bury  him  under  a  thousand  tons  of  crystal- 
lized quartz  ;  he  disports  himself  picking  up 
a  stone  pulled  to  the  earth  by  centrifugal 
powers,  and  forgetful  that  he  lifts  it  by  an 
interference  with  natural  law.  Moreover,  this 
man  breathes,  unmindful  that  his  lung  cavity 
is  saved  from  being  crushed  in  and  he  him- 
self made  a  revolting  spectacle,  solely  by  di- 
vine interposition,  through  which  in  some 
way  men  are  enabled  to  overcome  the  pull 
of  these  same  centrifugal  forces,  and  to  live 
in  spite  of  dominant  law.  We  sometimes 
wonder  how  flies  stick  on  ceilings  ;  I  fancy 
there  is  greater  wonder  how  men  live.  And 
this  is  the  creature  who  cannot  believe  that 
the  Almighty  can  invade,  in  the  personali- 
ties of  Jesus  and  His  disciples,  the  domain 
of  natural  law,  whose  whole  life  is  a  con- 
stant series  of  invasions  of  that  same  sort. 

It  is  evident  God  intended  that  there 
should  be  no  doubt  as  to  miracles.  For 
wriggle  around  one  and  another  as  you  may, 
you  will  be  but  impaled  on  the  third.  Hyp- 
notism may  explain  one  thing,  but  it  cannot 


70  Hem  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

explain  all.  Christ  was  more  than  a  mind 
reader ;  His  revelation  more  than  that  of 
Madame  Blavatsky,  and  His  miracles  more 
than  those  of  Col.  Olcott,  Blavatsky 's  lieu- 
tenant, who  has  been  working  modern  signs 
and  wonders  of  late  in  Ceylon  ;  thus  putting 
new  wine  into  the  old  wine  skins  of  Bud- 
dhism in  the  East.  Of  the  type  of  admittedly 
unimpeachable  miracles  contained  in  the 
Gospels  is  this  miracle  of  Paul's  handker- 
chiefs. Tradition  says  they  were  carried 
into  Bulgaria,  and  that  there  the  miracles 
were  wrought,  but  that  is  a  long  way.  All 
the  teaching  I  can  see  is  that  to  some 
sick  folk  unable  to  be  on  the  scene  of 
the  Apostle's  labors,  healing  was  carried 
by  faith  through  articles  which  had  been 
touched  by  Paul.  Christ  always  did  some- 
thing ;  He  would  say,  Son  or  daughter, 
I  say  unto  thee,  Arise  ;  He  would  pray  be- 
fore raising  the  dead  to  life  ;  He  would 
moisten  the  spittle  and  place  it  upon  the 
blind  eyes  to  be  made  seeing,  because  He 
was  working  miracles  upon  men,  and  work- 
ing manifestly  and  clearly  apart  from  natu- 
ral law,  which  He  was  to  defy.  We  should 
be  more  and  more  in  the  dark  if  He  had  not 
dramatically  done  these  things.     Dramatic,  I 


miracles  as  Kelateb  to  tlTobern  £tfe.     Tl 

say,  in  order  that  men  might  be  attracted  to 
the  act,  and  with  aroused  attention  witness 
His  deed  ;  they  would  therefore  perceive  there 
was  no  fraud  or  jugglery  about  it,  and  also 
have  most  clear  consciousness  that  it  was 
from  the  resources  of  His  own  personality 
these  works  were  wrought. 

You  say,  **  There  is  no  need  of  miracles; 
it  amounts  to  nothing  in  my  faith.  Why  do 
you  puzzle  with  these  arguments  of  analogy  ? 
Why  does  the  church  insist  on  the  super- 
natural works  of  Christ,  and  subject  Chris- 
tianity to  the  suspicion  of  being  charlatan 
born,  like  Mormonism,  spiritualism,  and  the- 
osophy  ?"  Well,  here  is  a  man  with  hypnotic 
powers  such  that  he  can  control  the  will  of 
another,  remove  the  disorders  of  his  halluci- 
nations, heal  his  nervous  sickness,  and  make 
him  testify  that  the  healer  is  a  most  marvel- 
ous personality,  gifted  with  divine  powers. 
Said  Madame  Blavatsky  to  Moncure  D. 
Conway  of  the  things  her  disciples  said 
concerning  her,  '*  They  think  they  see 
them  "  ( ?).  The  power  of  the  hypnotist,  from 
a  disciple's  standpoint,  would  seem  super- 
natural. What  argument  could  you  and  I 
advance  to  these  admirers  and  devotees  if 
the   miracles  of  Christ  were  wanting  ?    We 


72         HetD  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

can  now  say,  Produce  your  miracles ;  we 
will  show  you  miracles  of  greater  power, 
equal  to  those  of  the  hypnotist,  and  far  tran- 
scending them.  Greater  authority  must  go 
with  greater  powers. 

The  handful  of  seeming  modern  miracles  is 
as  nothing  compared  with  those  of  Christ 
culminating  in  the  resurrection.  The  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  men  and  women, 
awaked  by  the  trifling  mysteries  of  spiritual- 
ism to  a  kind  of  living  faith  in  the  modern 
necromancer,  the  medium,  and  in  the  mod- 
ern exorcist,  the  clairvoyant,  are  evidence 
that  the  modern  world  needs  straight  doc- 
trine of  the  miraculous  power  Christ  had 
of  old  to  heal.  You  say  the  spiritualist  is  a 
man  of  moderate  intelligence,  and  so  try  to 
throw  the  case  out  of  court.  Let  me  tell  you 
that  some  of  the  brightest  men  I  have  known 
have  been  spiritualists.  Take  Mrs.  Annie 
Besant,  formerly  a  secularist,  the  friend  and 
coadjutor  of  Charles  Bradlaugh  ;  this  woman 
has  been  noted  as  a  hard  atheist,  believing 
only  in  materialism  and  denying  all  spiritu- 
ality. She  has  recently  been  expelled  from 
her  old  society  because  of  her  adoption  of 
the  miracles  of  Madame  Blavatsky  as  genuine 
and  the  acceptance  of  Blavatsky's  account  of 


VTixxacUs  as  Kelateb  to  Ittobern  £tfe.     73 

the  wisdom  she  had  drawn  from  the  Mahat- 
mas.  The  truth  of  it  is,  no  person's  intellect- 
ual capacity  is  guaranty  for  right  opinions. 
And  the  foolishest  of  notions  that  ever  en- 
tered the  heart  of  man  is  the  dictum,  "  My 
way  is  the  only  way  dictated  by  reason,  and 
all  who  disagree  are  fools." 

Taking  things  as  they  are,  we  need  the 
argument  that  the  miracles  of  Christ  and  His 
Apostles  transcend  all  others,  and  therefore 
that  the  moral  authority  of  Christ  transcends 
all  others.  So  long  as  spiritualists,  hypnotists, 
theosophists,  Mormons,  cannot  raise  the  dead^ 
they  cannot  produce  authority  enough  to 
show  their  right  to  be  regarded  as  the 
moral  teachers  of  mankind,  God  not  having 
given  them  supernatural  powers  confirma- 
tory thereof.  Science,  as  meeting  these  new 
errors,  cannot  overcome  them.  It  can  and  is 
for  the  first  time  cataloguing  their  manifesta- 
tions ;  it  cannot  explain  the  phenomena  any 
more  than  it  can  explain  thought  or  life  or 
death.  A  power  revealed  before  the  eyes  of 
science  becomes  a  phenomenon  and  is  granted 
its  place  among  the  powers  in  exercise  by 
men.  It  cannot  break  the  force  of  authority 
granted  thereby.  The  only  power  that  can 
break  the  force  of  modern  superstition  is  the 


74  tcctt)  Concepts  of  £)I6  Doc^mas. 

power  of  the  cross  upheld  in  an  elevated  and 
central  position  by  sign  and  wonder  wrought 
by  the  God-man  and  continued  among  His 
personal  disciples.  What  maintained  Bou- 
langer  with  the  French  people,  who  took  his 
life  the  other  day  at  Brussels  ?  He  was  not  a 
church  man,  for  he  said,  in  instructions  given 
to  generals  concerning  the  officers  under  them 
while  he  was  war  minister  of  France,  "  It 
is  unrepublican  to  go  to  the  place  called 
the  church."  He  was  indeed  the  idol  of  the 
atheistical  eight  million  in  France  and  the 
half-breeds  between  them  and  Catholicism  ; 
but  he  had  the  capacity  of  winning  France 
by  personal  qualities  much  like  those  of  the 
Great  Napoleon.  He  was  not  great,  but  he 
was  a  pleasing  personality,  and  was  adored 
by  thousands. 

Human  nature^  having  so  much  mate- 
rial to  be  inflamed  by  the  possession  of 
unusual  qualities,  is  constant  food  for  im- 
pression through  the  miraculous,  the  miracle 
of  genius,  or  the  miracle  of  mysteriously 
endowed  personality.  Give  then,  O  man  of 
God !  to  the  eager  heart  of  humanity  the 
divinely  endowed  Christ,  that  on  the  basis 
of  a  wonder-working,  extraordinary  person- 
ality men  may  lay  the  foundations  of  a  super- 


^trades  as  Helateb  to  VTiobztn  £tfe.     75 

natural  morality  ;  that  the  world  may  not 
sink  to  the  moral  degradation  of  France,  well 
typified  by  the  fact  that  Gambetta,  her  fore- 
most patriot  and  orator,  died  at  the  hand  of 
his  mistress,  while  Boulanger,  their  greatest 
popular  idol  since  Mirabeau,  shoots  himself 
over  the  grave  of  his  dead  paramour,  es- 
tranged from  wife  and  family. 

It  seems  to  the  preacher  that  while  he  thus 
defends  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament, 
he  must  attack  the  Romish  superstition  of 
relics.  If  a  handkerchief  which  had  touched 
the  flesh  of  Paul  were  preserved  until  now, 
would  it  have  the  same  miraculous  powers 
it  did  then  ?  Or  in  other  words,  were  the  di- 
vine miracles  of  Christ  consequent  upon  the 
suffusement  of  material  things  with  power? 
so  that  miraculously  endowed  things,  coming 
in  contact  with  others,  would  bestow  miracu- 
lous endowment  ?  so  that  the  holy  coat  of 
Treves,  being  once  worn  by  our  Saviour, 
hath  miraculous  powers  to  this  day  }  so  that, 
as  the  great  crowd  of  pilgrims,  under  the 
lead  of  their  parish  priests,  files  behind  the 
high  altar  and  past  the  smock-frocked  brown- 
ish relic  with  a  hole  for  neck  and  half  sleeves, 
and  looking  as  if  made  of  old  china  silk,  the 
nervous   and   trembling  anxiety  of  the  pil- 


76         HcrD  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

grims  is  justified  ?  and  likewise  the  hope  of 
mothers  who  now  and  then  bring  paralytic 
children,  and  of  the  devout  who  ask  that 
rosary  or  other  keepsake  may  be  touched 
upon  it  by  the  attending  priests  in  antici- 
pation that  virtue  thus  communicated  may 
be  transferred  to  the  sick,  that  they  shall 
recover  ? 

The  New  Testament  miracles  require  im- 
mediateness  and  personality.  It  is  always  a 
dynamic  power,  not  a  slumbering  or  dor- 
mant one. 

The  holy  coat  was  discovered  by  Helena, 
the  mother  of  Constantine.  Newman,  in  his 
** Apologia  Pro  Vita  Sua,"  says:  "I  think  it 
impossible  to  withstand  the  evidence  which 
is  brought  for  the  liquefaction  of  the  blood  of 
St.  Januarius  at  Naples,  and  for  the  motion 
of  the  eyes  of  the  pictures  of  Madonna  in 
the  Roman  states.  I  see  no  reason  to  doubt 
the  material  of  the  Lombard  crown  at 
Monza,  and  I  do  not  see  why  the  holy  coat 
at  Treves  may  not  have  been  what  it  pur- 
ports to  be."  This  gives  the  true  case  be- 
tween Rome  and  Protestantism,  as  to  modern 
miracles.  That  all  living  men,  and  not  the 
least  among  them,  Protestants,  would  ven- 
erate   the    garment   of  the    Lord    Jesus,    if 


ZTTtracIes  as  Helateb  to  ITtobern  Ctfe.     77 

handed  down  to  us  from  antiquity,  is  un- 
doubted. We  may  even  grant  that  there  are 
true  cases  of  faith  healing  among  those  re- 
ported from  the  German  city,  when  many 
days  over  40,000  pilgrims  pass  the  shrine 
and  two  millions  are  expected  to  pass  it  ere 
the  (tunica  sacrosancta)  Holy  robe  shall  be 
sealed  away  from  human  sight  until  again  in 
the  twentieth  century  it  shall  be  brought 
forth  to  the  gaze  of  the  devout  multitudes. 

I  say  there  may  be  real  healings,  God  over- 
looking the  poverty  of  human  asking  in  the 
dire  extremity  of  human  need,  turning  its 
eyes  in  faith  to  the  heavens.  But  the  differ- 
ence between  us  remains  ;  if  the  garment  is 
the  true  robe  of  Christ,  it  is  but  the  decayed 
vestment  without  power ;  it  is  not  the 
vehicle  in  and  of  itself  of  the  miraculous. 
The  endowment  was  upon  the  nature  of 
Jesus,  the  God-man,  not  upon  His  clothing  ; 
and  such  remnants,  if  they  exist,  have  no 
more  power  than  mere  rags.  We  preserve 
the  coat  of  Washington  ;  we  would  preserve 
the  coat  of  Christ  if  we  might ;  we  re- 
spect the  character  of  the  one,  we  adore  that 
of  the  other  ;  but  we  do  not  regard  as  sacred 
the  garments  of  either,  and  the  permission  to 
see  the  one  or  the  other  is  merely  a  gratifica- 


78  Hem  Concepts  of  Vlb  Dogmas. 

tion  of  curiosity  or  taste  for  the  historic  ; 
namely,  that  we  may  gain  knowledge  of  His 
appearance  among  men,  and  thus  get  some- 
what of  the  local  coloring,  and  fuller  sense  of 
His  authentic  teaching.  But  as  for  power  in 
the  fiber  of  the  garment  which  He  wore,  we 
deny  it  ;  far  less  power  hath  it  resisting  de- 
cay than  the  blade  of  corn  in  the  spring- 
time, pushing  upward  in  the  light,  speaking 
of  death  indeed,  but  of  death  swallowed  up 
in  life,  with  which  it  is  now  endowed,  each 
change  in  which,  as  it  progresses  from  blade 
to  ear  and  full  corn  in  the  ear,  bespeaking 
a  miraculous  energy  from  the  center  of 
things  to  whose  immortal  benignity  there 
are  no  miracles  in  things  present  or  things 
to  come,  in  life  or  death  or  any  other  creat- 
ure, as  all  things  are  of  God  and  of  God 
only  —  their  source  and  their  sum. 


THE  FOREORDAINED  GRACE 
OF  GOD. 

^^  For  whom  He  fo7-eknew^  He  also  foreordained 
to  be  conformed  to  the  image  of  His  Son, 
that  He  might  be  the  firstborn  among  many 
brethren,'''' — Rom.  8  :  sg. 

THIS  sermon  is  like  chapters  in  some  books, 
—  to  be  read  or  skipped.  It  is  not  milk 
for  babes.  If  there  is  anybody  here  that  is 
impatient  under  discussions  of  what  is  cur- 
rently termed  Calvinism,  they  would  better 
go  out.  The  subject  of  God's  sovereignty 
can  only  be  treated  fairly  by  those  whose 
souls,  like  the  eyes  of  eagles  under  the  fierce 
rays  of  the  sun,  will  be  unblinking  in  the 
presence  of  eternal  truth.  I  say  this  sermon 
may  be  heard  or  omitted.  You  can  be  a 
Christian,  and  not  believe  in  God's  sover- 
eignty. If  you  dissent  from  much  or  all  of 
this  sermon,  is  no  matter.  It  is  presumed  no 
one  will  be  lost  because  his  head  is  dizzy,  and 
he  cannot  climb  mountain  precipices  or  bear 
the  looming,  yawning  chasms  down  the  jaws 
of  which  it  is  terrible  to  look.  One  may 
hesitate  to  sit  with  the  fates  of  awful  mein  to 

(79) 


80  rcem  Concepts  of  £)I6  Pogmas. 

see  them  spin  the  thread  of  life,  and  espe- 
cially while  Atropos  shall  cut  the  thread.  Let 
those  turn  their  face  that  will ;  but  shall  we 
deny  that  eternal  laws  take  their  course  with- 
out obstruction,  and  that  men  and  angels 
must  submit  ?  What  we  do  object  to  is  that 
any  person  shall  listen  prejudiced  to  the 
questions  treated.  However,  it  must  be 
added,  as  the  conviction  of  the  preacher, 
that  it  is  impossible  for  a  person  with  an 
illogical  mind  to  understand  the  arguments 
on  this  subject.  The  bitterness  with  which 
foreordination  and  kindred  topics  are  as- 
sailed is  largely  due  to  this  incapacity. 
Further,  the  mastery  of  this  subject  cannot 
be  attained  at  a  leap  ;  it  is  a  question  for 
years  of  deliberation,  and  as  in  all  philosophic 
questions,  insight  is  granted  only  as  a  reward 
to  patience. 

He  who  has  the  capacity  to  think  philo- 
sophically can  have  but  two  horns  to  his 
dilemma, —  either  God's  sovereignty,  or  athe- 
ism. Hence  it  is  true  that  many  of  the 
highest  intelligence  must  be  Calvinists  if 
they  are  Christians.  That  multitudes  have 
failed  to  think  it  out  is  unfortunate ;  the 
great  doctrine  of  God's  sovereignty  then  be- 
comes like  the  bur  under  Haley's  saddle  in 


Cl?e  ^oreorbaineb  ©race  of  ©ob.         81 

''Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  " — a  constant  irritant; 
as  that  bur  made  a  bucking  horse,  so  this  doc- 
trine makes  bucking  men.  But  a  man  irri- 
tated, hackled,  and  out  of  temper,  is  not  in 
the  mood  to  consider  a  question  as  broad 
as  the  cosmos,  as  high  as  heaven,  and  as 
deep  as  hell. 

Foreordination  is  the  vastest  subject  that 
can  engross  the  attention  of  mankind,  and 
at  the  same  time  is  the  fundamental  question 
of  religion.  It  touches  human  nature,  and  the 
mission  of  Christ  alike.  There  are  childish 
people  who  bow  before  shrines  and  who  be- 
lieve as  they  are  taught,  to  whom  faith  pre- 
sents no  problems,  and  who  do  not  consider 
the  essentials  of  faith  ;  we  condemn  their 
superstition,  or  rather  I  should  say  we  con- 
done it.  But  those  persons  who  thus 
condone  it  are  themselves  guilty  of  an  intel- 
lectual jugglery  and  blinking  of  the  real 
questions  of  religion  such  that  we  are  unable 
to  say  which  category  is  the  most  unworthy. 

The  Scriptures  teach  a  science  of  God. 
From  nature  we  learn  that  there  is  design 
in  the  universe,  but  can  only  conceive  of 
events  as  occurring  in  series,  that  is,  one  after 
another.  This  design  in  nature  of  course 
bespeaks  a  designer,  as  truly,  to  use  a  famil- 
6 


82  Hett)  Concepts  of  £)I5  Dogmas. 

iar  illustration,  as  the  serpent  mound  in  Ohio, 
with  gaping  mouth,  bespeaks  a  fabricator^ 
Now  the  question  arises,  whether  the  om- 
nipotence which  creates,  foreknows  future 
events.  A  man  may  build  a  tiny  craft,  and 
make  a  miniature  sail,  and  carry  it  to  the 
edge  of  the  lake,  and  let  the  west  wind  blow 
it  out  of  sight.  The  power  to  create  does 
not  necessarily  imply  the  power  to  foresee 
whether  it  would  keel  over  and  sink,  or  find 
the  other  shore,  bearing  a  sealed  message 
which  another  shall  read.  So,  say  some,  in 
making  man  filled  with  the  breath  of  life, 
there  is  not  of  necessity  foreknowledge  of 
all  coasts  on  which  he  may  land  or  of  all 
choices  which  he  may  form.  But  that  be- 
ing so  making  must  have  intelligence,  and 
some  sort  of  idea  as  to  the  probabilities 
of  what  may  happen  to  this  man  whom  he 
has  made  free.  Can  God  make  a  power  of 
choice  which  He  does  not  foresee  ?  For  in- 
stance, there  is  the  power  of  thought  when 
one  idea  arrests  another,  and  so  brings  it 
above  consciousness.  Is  it  possible  for  Om- 
nipotence to  make  a  brain  capable  of  trans- 
mitting and  originating  ideas,  and  not  know 
what  it  can  produce  ?  To  say  He  could, 
would  be  like  saying  that  the  inventor  of  a 


tr^e  ;Joreorbatneb  ®race  of  ^ob.        83 

machine  making  nails  could  invent  every 
part,  set  the  machine  up  ready  to  bite  the 
flat  bar  iron,  and  turn  out  a  finished  product, 
without  trying  whether  it  could  do  so  or  not, 
or  knowing  certainly  that  it  could  eat  the 
iron  and  make  the  nail.  If  God  made  man, 
He  must  know  his  out-put,  what  with  cer- 
tain motives  will  be  sure  choices. 

You  may  say  this  is  not  quite  conclusive  ; 
but  add  one  thing  to  it,  the  fact  that  men 
consent  to  government,  and  thus  human  in- 
stitutions cohere,  and  that  there  is  growth, 
life,  decay  of  human  institutions  and  civiliza- 
tions, for  which  there  is  land  and  country^ 
the  one  suitable  to  sustenance,  the  other 
segregating  them,  so  that  men  in  govern- 
mental relations  could  not  exist  unless  the 
theater  of  events  had  been  prepared,  and  the 
human  constitution  been  fitted  by  a  super- 
natural wisdom  for  organic  life  in  nations. 
That  is,  man  could  not  live  by  hazard,  there 
must  be  a  fruitful  soil  and  climate  to  support 
him,  also  there  must  be  kindred  blood  to 
bind  the  various  branches  together ;  there 
must  be  the  coercive  power  over  one  mind 
of  force  directed  by  another,  so  that  rebell- 
ious provinces  shall  be  subdued.  Mountain 
chains  must  build  barriers  to  hem  them  in 


84  Hett?  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

from  outside  influences,  and  harsh  weather 
from  northern  skies  must  put  iron  in  their 
blood.  God  must  have  sagacity  enough  to 
know  what  a  man  will  think  in  a  certain  case. 

God  is  in  the  world  pulling  on  the  very 
verges  of  the  cosmos,  making  Arcturus  and 
all  his  train  do  His  bidding.  Is  that  a  dead 
vitality  ?  Does  it  not  show  an  instinct  in  that 
each  star  has  a  law  which  pulls  one  way, 
binding  the  spheres  in  their  courses.?  Does 
not  each  chemical  combination  show  an  in- 
stinct at  least  ?  that  is,  it  always  acts  the  same, 
proving  intelligence  like  that  of  the  horse 
that  knows  the  way  along  the  road  over 
which  he  has  passed  to  his  own  barn. 

There  is  no  such  thing  as  law  without  life  ; 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  life  without  intel- 
ligence behind  it,  giving  the  law  of  its  being. 
As  God's  spirit  is  in  all  animate  creation  and 
manifesting  intelligence  ;  is  that  same  spirit 
not  in  man,  the  sustainer  of  his  life,  the 
recognizer  of  his  every  act,  the  illuminator 
of  his  conscience  }  "  This  is  the  light  which 
lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the 
world."  Law  is  but  the  external  descrip- 
tion of  God's  intelligent  working  in  natural 
things  ;  it  is  not  an  abstract  essence  ;  it  is 
a  living  presence,  the  heart  of  the  material 


^^e  ^oreorbatneb  ^race  of  ^ob.        85 

thing.  Everywhere  present,  everywhere  in- 
telligent, He  must  have  cognizance  of  man's 
thought  of  whose  principle  of  life  He  is  the 
core,  and  without  whose  spirit  in  its  mem- 
bers, the  human  body  could  not  exist.  This 
is  a  course  of  reasoning  extra-scriptural,  but 
leading  to  the  scriptural  point  of  view.  This 
philosophy  explains  man's  true  freedom. 

There  is  a  hypothesis  which  presents  itself 
as  an  alternative  to  foreordination  ;  namely, 
that  of  foreknowledge  pure  and  simple.  I 
have  tried  to  prove  that  God  foreknows  ;  I 
want  to  prove  something  more.  God  fore- 
knows, therefore  foreordains,  is  this  other 
theory.  That  is.  He  knows  the  choices  of 
each  free  agent,  and  foreordains  according  to 
the  foreseen  acts  of  each.  In  other  words,  it 
has  been  decreed  from  all  eternity  that  each 
man  shall  do  as  he  pleases.  But  a  free  act 
foreseen,  and  because  foreseen,  fated,  is  an 
act  without  an  element  of  freedom  in  so  far  as 
it  is  a  God-compelled  act.  To  foreknow  and 
then  decree  is  the  only  kind  of  a  decree 
possible  by  any  personality.  Our  boasted 
freedom,  therefore,  becomes  fatalism  through 
circuitous  terms.  Foreordination  becomes 
foreknowledge  in  an  interchangeable  way,  a 
kind  of  sophistry  running  in  a  circle.     The 


86         HctD  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

foreknowledge  by  God  of  His  own  acts  is  a 
foreknowledge  of  freedom  ;  a  foreknowledge 
of  a  freedom  of  others  dependent  upon  en- 
vironment is  equivalent  to  fatality.  It  is 
freedom  for  God  and  not  for  men.  In  other 
words,  the  Armenian  hypothesis  is  fatalism  ; 
namely,  that  each  man  can  do  what  God  has 
foreseen  and  determined  ;  which  is  equivalent 
to  this,  that  every  man  does  as  he  must,  and 
must  do  as  he  does.     Whatever  is,  is  right. 

Now  suppose  we  say  that  God  foreordains 
all  things,  whatsoever  comes  to  pass,  without 
regard  to  man's  choice,  but  in  His  forewill- 
ing  and  foreordaining,  preserves  the  integ- 
rity of  each  human  will.  Sometimes  these 
wills  decide  as  He  would  have  them.  He  fore- 
knew it,  but  He  did  not  by  decreeing  compel 
obedience.  That  there  was  something  in  a 
man's  make-up  and  in  the  environment  of  his 
life,  which  has  resulted  in  choices  of  good  and 
in  the  love  of  God,  is  due  to  omnipotence, 
but  it  does  not  interfere  with  freedom.  Then 
how  about  those  souls  who,  under  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  the  opportuni- 
ties of  divine  providence,  reject  Christ  and 
all  good  ?  Are  they  lost  ?  Says  the  Armin- 
ian.  Yes  !  Says  the  Calvinist,  By  no  means. 
God   has  only  begun   when    He  is  rejected. 


C^e  5<^reorbatneb  ^race  of  ^ob,        87 

Heaven  and  earth  are  daily  witnessing  God's 
workings  in  behalf  of  those  who  have  defi- 
nitely rejected  Christ.  A  thousand  sorrows 
may  be  required  to  bring  one  heart  into 
obedience  to  the  Lord,  which  He  grants,  not 
that  a  will  may  be  broken,  but  that  a  soul 
may  be  saved  and  a  new  heart  created. 
Another  let  us  hope  has  a  vicissitude  of  pros* 
perity,  that  through  prosperity  he  may  find 
a  new  motive  in  life.  For  most  of  us,  how- 
ever, God  mingles  the  cup ;  pleasure  and 
sorrow,  comfort  and  pain,  ecstasy  of  joy,  and 
dolor  of  suffering  are  all  ours,  that  out  of  a 
composite  experience  a  child  of  God  may  be 
brought  near  to  the  Father's  heart,  and 
despite  wrong  choices  of  will,  may  yet  in 
freedom  know  what  it  is  to  love  God. 

-The  preacher  doubts  if  one  of  us  first 
turned  to  God.  The  rather  is  our  redemp- 
tion to  be  traced  to  His  unbending  purpose 
to  bring  us  in  freedom  to  choice  of  good. 
That  He  cannot  save  all  men  is  undoubtedly 
true.  To  believe  that  He  would  is  to  fly  in 
face  of  the  analogies  of  human  experience, 
which  sees  evil  choices  abounding  unshaken 
in  many  souls,  and  likewise  is  contrary  to 
the  word  of  Christ,  the  revealer  of  God's  will. 
But  that  He  does  save  myriads  by  His  free 


88         Xlcw  Concepts  of  £)I5  Dogmas. 

grace,  in  spite  of  themselves,  and  doth  bring 
them  free  in  full  consciousness  of  their  free- 
dom into  the  kingdom  of  God,  is  to  me  the 
only  consistent  doctrine  which  harmonizes  hu- 
man freedom  and  divine  sovereignty.  Either 
there  is  no  God,  or  this  is  about  the  state- 
ment of  His  being  and  nature.  If  there  is  a 
plan  and  purpose  behind  nature  and  life, 
there  must  be  this  harmonization  or  the 
equivalent.  God  knows  what  natural  law 
will  bring  to  human  hearts,  and  likewise 
freedom  ;  He  will  save  sometimes  in  spite  of 
law,  sometimes  by  law.  He  will  save  some- 
times by  freedom,  and  sometimes  in  spite  of 
freedom,  though  consistently  therewith.  It 
is  all  of  His  grace  and  love.  For  with  me 
the  other  alternative  is  that  God  made  the 
world  and  set  it  a-going,  so  that  all  things 
run  by  chance,  a  kind  of  Pandora's  box,  full 
of  evils.  He  himself  standing  helplessly  by, 
sorry  now  that  He  did  it,  but  helpless  to 
avert  the  catastrophes  which  have  resulted. 
Well  may  such  believe  the  story  of  His  gift 
of  Christ  simply  a  fake,  like  a  green  turnip 
at  a  horse's  nose  ;  all  very  well  for  the  horse 
that  likes  it,  but  to  be  rejected  by  the  horse 
that  does  not.  Said  Christ,  "  Ye  have  not 
chosen  me,  but  I  have  chosen  you,  and  or- 
dained you,  that  ye  should  bear  much  fruit," 


GOD  IS  LOVE. 

"  For  God  is  love.^^  —  /  John  4.  :  8. 

FOUR  hundred  millions  of  men  the  world 
over  are  keeping  holy  time  this  Lent,  in 
that  act  showing  the  common  bonds  of  Chris- 
tian faith  ;  thrice  as  many  more  do  not  recog-  - 
nize  the  bond  by  similar  symbolic  acts  of 
devotion.  But  who  of  us  that  is  one  with  the 
Christian  church  in  recognition  of  the  supreme 
value  of  the  life  of  Christ,  does  not  rejoice  that 
he  can  take  upon  his  lips  the  electrifying 
words,  "  I  am  a  Christian,"  and  that  he  is  not 
a  pagan  ?  We  are  told  that  from  the  mouths 
of  the  Nile  in  the  delta  of  Egypt  to  its 
sources  in  the  great  central  African  lakes, 
there  is  every  diversity  of  human  circum- 
stance under  the  sun,  and  all  under  anti- 
Christian  knowledge  and  forms  of  religious 
belief  The  country  about  the  mouth  of  the 
Nile  is  distinctly  out  of  joint  with  the  civili- 
zation of  Europe,  with  which  it  has  been  in 
contact  since  history  began,  and  it  never  yet 
invaded  the  seats  of  barbarism  above,  toward 
the  source  of  the  mighty  floods  which  were 
generated  in  the  heart  of  the  continent  in  a 

(89) 


90         HetD  (Lonczpts  of  £>lb  Dogmas. 

manner  unknown,  and  which  at  their  an- 
nual rise  were  gratefully  accepted,  as  the 
nourisher  of  life  in  the  whole  Nile  basin. 
At  length  the  vail  has  been  lifted  upon  four 
thousand  miles  of  pagan  country.  And 
though  it  is  new  and  strange,  yet  from  the 
granite  palaces  of  Cairo,  where,  enshrined  in 
luxury  and  ease,  the  natural  man  panders  to 
his  baser  nature,  with  all  the  increased  en- 
dowment and  environment  derived  from 
commerce  with  Christendom,  to  the  most  in- 
significant savage  of  the  marshes  in  the 
equatorial  provinces,  viewing  men,  do  we 
not  thank  God  we  are  not  as  they  are  ?  And 
would  not  the  poorest  and  most  wretched 
Christian  hesitate  to  exchange  his  poverty 
for  the  riches  of  an  oriental  civilization, 
which  with  such  blandishments  of  the  creat- 
ure would  make  man  a  pagan  as  the  price  of 
such  a  heritage  ?  And  what  is  the  difference, 
so  world-wide  ?  Define  it,  that  we  may  make 
it  ours  and  understand  our  privilege.  Ah  ! 
yes,  I  would  if  I  could. 

Deeper  than  man's  choices  are  these  ine- 
radicable diversities  of  human  nature  im- 
planted in  his  constitution  by  the  divine 
Wisdom,  and  finding  their  ultimate  expression 
in  the  heart  and   character  of  Christ.     But 


6ob  is  Core/  91 


one  thing  in  considerable  fullness  is  testified 
to  by  the  Christian  observance  of  Lent ;  it  is 
the  testimony  of  love  to  love,  and  is  a  recog- 
nition that  love  is  eternal.  Jesus  suffered 
because  He  loved  ;  God  sent  Him  because  He 
loved.  We  love  Them  because  They  first 
loved  us.  Jesus  bearing  the  burden  of  the 
approaching  sacrifice  with  courage,  weighed 
down  by  foreboding,  yet  immutable  in  His 
purpose,  is  the  Jesus  whose  self-sacrificing 
love  we  this  day  recognize. 

In  the  heart  of  Africa,  under  the  moon- 
light, the  lonely  village  built  around  huge, 
monumental  bowlders  left  by  antediluvian 
floods,  is  asleep,  for  men,  whether  savage 
or  civilized,  must  take  their  rest.  They 
hear  the  sharp  blows  of  a  hatchet  upon  the 
stockade  of  wattled  poles  that  surrounds 
it.  The  men  seize  their  poisoned  arrows 
and  such  other  weapons  as  they  have, 
and  run  out  to  the  defense  of  their  home 
huts,  to  be  met  as  they  go  beyond  their 
thresholds  by  leaden  rain  from  Arab  rifles. 
They  fall  prostrate  ;  mothers,  shrinking,  hide 
their  children,  and  peering  out  into  the  dark- 
ness, illumined  by  the  torch  which  has  now 
been  laid  to  the  straw  thatches,  look  for 
chance  of  escape,  as  wild  beasts  surprised  by 


^2         Hctt)  Concepts  of  £>\b  Dogmas, 

prairie-fires,  only  that  they  have  less  courage 
than  the  beasts,  according  as  they  know 
better  the  cruel  temper  of  the  manslayer 
behind  the  rifle.  Poor  hunted  creatures 
they  are,  from  the  first  stroke  of  the  ax  to 
the  last  act  of  the  bloody  drama  of  the  star- 
lighted  plain.  This  is  man's  humanity  to 
man.  The  knowledge  of  their  possession  of 
a  few  hundred  pounds  of  elephant  tusks 
easily  exchangeable  for  gold,  or  the  desire 
for  women  and  girls  as  slaves,  or  the  hatred 
engendered  in  petty  border  strifes,  are  all 
the  motive  needed  for  such  foul  scenes  of 
blood.  Let  them,  who  would  deify  humanity, 
acknowledge  their  God. 

Let  us  take  another  picture.  A  Child  is 
born  into  a  poor  carpenter's  family  ;  under 
the  meagerest  conditions  of  earthly  wealth, 
without  favor  and  without  power,  living  un- 
der the  tyranny  of  the  mightiest  government 
of  antiquity  at  its  worst  ;  and  while  never 
favoring  injustice  in  the  least,  yet  never 
showing  the  slightest  temper  of  hatred  for 
the  oppressor.  Meeting  only  hypocrites  with 
scorn,  and  going  on  calmly  with  a  proclama- 
tion of  love  and  mercy,  and  with  a  life  of 
self-sacrifice,  under  the  white  light  of  which 
all    His   doctrines    disappear   as   candles  are 


®ob  is  Cope.  93 

outshone  under  the  arc  streaming  with  elec- 
tric splendor,  so  much  more  is  doing  than 
professing,  so  much  more  is  life  than  creed, 
and  in  that  frame  of  mind  set  as  a  ftint  in 
love  and  compassion  for  us,  He  dies.  This 
man  Christianity  reverently  says  was  the 
only  begotten  Son  of  God,  and  strives  to 
identify  itself  with  Him,  and  fashion  its 
temper  like  His,  making  hard  endeavor  to 
shroud  its  poverty  of  good  in  His  benignity 
and  worth,  feeling  that  only  as  through  Him 
and  of  Him,  as  the  great  pledge  of  the  eter- 
nal nature  of  God's  love,  can  there  be  any 
foundation  for  hope  of  man's  redemption 
from  sin,  and  restoration  to  the  arms  of  an 
offended  God.  Leaving  aside  the  deeper  life 
under  Christian  faith,  there  is  yet  to  every 
Christian  man  a  unique  significance  in  the 
whole  life  of  Christ. 

Did  you  ever  think  of  the  difference  be- 
tween God  as  an  abstract  creation  of  the 
human  intellect,  quiescent  and  absolute,  and 
of  God  actively  interested  in  the  affairs  of 
this  life  ?  Of  this  latter  attitude  Jesus  Christ 
is  the  great  proof.  Granting  that  Jesus  was 
the  only  begotten  Son  of  God,  then  the  in- 
finite Father  could  not  view  with  indifference 
the  excursion  of  the  incarnated  sonship  into 


94  HetD  Concepts  of  PIb  Dogmas. 

the  domains  of  men.  And  granted  that  the 
Father  sent  forth  the  Son  to  redeem,  then 
His  love  going  with  Him  would  attach  itself 
to  the  creatures  and  the  created  universe 
whither  He  went  forth  on  His  errand  of  re- 
demption. 

There  is  a  story  going  the  rounds  that 
Stanley  had  offered  himself  to  the  woman  of 
his  choice,  and  not  having  received  an  answer, 
plunged  off  into  the  Dark  Continent,  on  the 
rescue  of  Emin  Pasha.  If  this  be  true,  and 
the  heart  of  the  woman  turned  toward  him, 
what  must  have  been  her  suspense  when  his 
death  seemed  assured;  after  tidings  had 
turned  in  his  favor,  do  you  not  believe  that 
the  woman's  heart  had  interest  in  every  one 
of  that  same  mission,  particularly  in  Emin 
and  his  men,  for  whom  that  rescue  was  un- 
dertaken ?  Even  so  must  the  interest  of  God 
have  covered  every  creature  for  whom  Christ 
went  on  a  mission  of  redemption,  desperate 
in  its  character  and  terrible  in  its  ordeals 
of  tear-compelling  sufferings.  Granted  the 
revelation  of  the  love  of  God  for  Christ,  a 
love  by  its  nature  unending,  and  extending 
to  the  meanest  and  poorest  whom  Christ 
loved  because  God  loves  his  only  Son  ;  and 
granting  one  thing  more,  which  Christianity 


(5ob  is  £ot?c.  95 

teaches,  namely,  that  man  was  made  in  the 
image  and  likeness  of  God  in  his  first  estate, 
and  that  first  impression  has  never  been 
wholly  effaced,  do  not  the  bronze  hinges  of 
one  more  temple  door  swing  open  to  the  hu- 
man imagination,  namely,  the  door  of  the 
temple  of  love  ?  Do  we  not  see  that  if  our 
earthly  love  is  like  the  love  of  God  for  His 
dear  Son,  the  love  of  the  weakest  human  heart 
is  eternal,  like  the  love  of  God  ? 

This  is  the  characteristic  of  the  Christian 
revelation  which  I  bring  before  you,  that 
love  is  eternal  because  God  is  love.  Heathen 
men  have  known  this  love  for  others  of  their 
kind.  Damon  placed  himself  in  the  hands 
of  Dionysius  to  be  put  to  death  if  Pythias, 
going  to  arrange  his  affairs,  should  not 
return,  but  before  the  execution,  Pythias 
came  back  to  save  his  friend  from  death. 
Husbands  loved  their  wives,  fathers  loved 
their  children,  but  they  did  not  know  that 
love  was  eternal.  Hoping,  as  some  did,  that 
there  might  be  some  sort  of  immortality  for 
the  soul  after  death,  they  did  not  know  the 
immortality  of  love.  Mothers  can  now  love 
their  own  with  assurance,  knowing  that  love  is 
eternal.  Husband  and  wife  can  now  love 
each  other  till  death  them  do  part,  and  hold 


96  Hetp  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

with  clinging  hands  the  hand  of  death  in 
love,  for  love  is  eternal.  Friend  can  love 
friend  through  long  years  of  happy  life,  so 
far  as  each  other  is  concerned,  and  even  in 
the  solitudes  rendered  solitary,  because  they 
are  their  accustomed  haunts  made  desolate 
by  death,  may  have  a  kind  of  quiet  peace, 
for  we  know  that  love  is  eternal. 

But  love  cannot  be  scattered  if  it  is  to  be 
abiding.  The  eternal  sort  of  love  is  not  that 
which  finds  new  objects  of  affection  supplant- 
ing the  old.  Were  this  not  true,  we  might 
say  the  favor  of  the  courtesan  and  the  adul- 
terer was  love.  Love  that  is  eternal  is  meas- 
ured, and  loves  to  sit  solitary  with  its  beloved. 
Carlyle,  when  poor,  lived  at  Craigenputtoch 
on  a  little  farm  that  had  fallen  as  a  heritage 
to  his  wife.  He  was  immersed  in  literary 
pursuits,  laying  the  foundation  of  his  ultimate 
fame  ;  and  while  he  delved  in  the  literary 
workshop,  his  wife  delved  in  the  kitchen.  A 
weak  frame  was  taxed  with  the  heavy  work 
of  the  farm,  and  trembling  fingers  were  worn 
to  the  quick,  and  the  soft  hand,  nurtured 
in  ease,  grew  rough  and  calloused.  But 
though  the  seeds  of  invalidism  were  most 
thoroughly  sown,  one  thing  was  gained, 
namely,  the  whole-hearted  affection  of  her 


(Sob  is  £ope.  97 

husband.  I  am  willing  to  grant  that  such 
sacrifices  ought  not  to  be  required,  but  yet 
it  remains  that  just  such  sacrifices  are  the 
infallible  proofs  of  eternal  love.  Livingstone 
died  to  have  his  body  carried  on  the  backs 
of  porters  under  the  guidance  of  the  faithful 
Susi  and  Chuma  eight  months,  because  he 
had  loved  them,  and  love  is  eternal.  A  great 
philanthropist,  suspecting  the  woman  whom 
he  was  about  to  marry  loved  another,  asked 
her  if  his  suspicions  were  well  founded,  and 
receiving  frank  answer  that  she  really  had 
loved  another  for  years,  to  whom  she  had 
not  been  married  because  they  both  were 
poor,  released  her  of  her  pledge,  gave  money 
to  the  impecunious  man  to  establish  him  in 
business,  saw  them  married,  and  lived  alone 
all  his  life  ;  true  love  not  hesitating  to  make 
its  object  happy  at  the  price  of  its  money, 
and  forgetful  of  personal  discomforture,  be- 
cause love  is  eternal. 

All  I  can  say  is,  Love  in  man  is  like  love 
in  God,  it  is  eternal.  Love  on,  for  love  is 
God-like,  and  remember  that  no  labor  of  love 
is  lost,  for  it  is  eternal.  Each  act  partakes  of 
the  nature  of  the  motive  behind  it.  The  kiss 
of  love  is  more  than  a  kiss,  it  is  a  token. 
The  prayer  of  love  is  more  than  a  prayer,  it 

7 


98         XCcw  Concepts  of  £>lb  Dogmas. 

is  a  benediction.  For  is  there  not  in  the 
mother's  heart  that  which  makes  her  ready 
to  face  the  flames  if  thereby  the  flame  shall 
be  robbed  of  its  prey  ?  Will  it  not  throttle 
and  kill  if  bloodshed  will  spare  the  inno- 
cence and  sweetness  of  girlhood  ?  To 
avenge  its  wrongs,  is  it  not  in  spirit 
like  an  avenging  lioness,  smiting  with  heavy 
hand  of  the  law  ?  or  when  the  law  fails, 
does  it  not  direct  the  avenging  bullet  .-* 
Will  not  the  mother  rob  her  half-covered 
breasts  of  their  covering  that  her  babe  may 
be  warm  ?  Are  not,  then,  that  mother's  kisses 
pledges  of  affection  too  deep  for  the  storms 
of  time  to  efface  ?  Are  not  her  prayers 
turned  to  blessings  by  her  own  hand  the 
next  moment  ?  And  all  because  love  is  eter- 
nal, and  love  is  of  God,  and  like  Him  eternal. 
No  caress  of  love  can  be  lost,  nor  is  any 
loved  one  past  our  recognition  ;  for  love  is 
eternal.  When  you  go  home  to-day,  kiss 
the  babe  more  tenderly,  for  love  is  eternal. 
Be  kinder  to  your  best  friends,  for  love  is 
eternal,  and  God  is  love. 


OBEDIENCE  DEMANDED. 

•*  But  "Jesus  said  unto  him.  No  7?ian,  having  put 
his  hand  to  the  plow,  and  looking  back,  is 
fit  for  the  kingdom  of  G&d.'^ — Luke  g  :  62. 

IT  is  hard  for  us  to  gather  a  realistic  idea 
of  the  Galilean  husbandman  ;  he  was  a 
peasant  born  on  the  land.  His  fathers  had 
become  prosperous  when  they  ceased  to  be 
nomads,  and  became  tillers  of  the  soil  ;  Isaac 
and  Jacob  cultivated  more  than  Abraham. 
The  problem  of  civilization  is  the  problem  of 
the  land  ;  the  ancient  Aryan  derived  his  title, 
we  are  told,  from  a  term  meaning  "to  plow." 
They  were  plowers  among  herdsmen  in  the 
far-off  East,  where  they  began  the  develop- 
ment of  modern  Indo-European  civilizations. 
But  the  irksomeness  of  toil  never  ceases  ; 
while  the  wild  aborigines  cannot  bear  it,  the 
civilized  man  shirks  it,  and  bemoans  his  task. 
"  I  am  a  toiler  from  the  cradle  to  the 
grave,"  is  the  true  plaint  of  the  generations. 
When  Christian  eyes  behold  the  country 
about  Capernaum,  from  which  city  our  Lord 
was  about  to  set  out  for  the  last  time,  they 
cannot    tell    the    exact    site,    or   the    many 

(99) 


1<^>0         Heir)  Concepts  of  £)lb  T)og,mas, 

changes  of  the  physical  features.  That  rude 
plow  of  the  modern  tiller  of  the  soil  is  able 
to  give  a  notion  of  that  which  may  have 
come  under  our  Lord's  eye  as  He  saw  the 
field  laborer  afar  off  driving  his  bullocks 
crookedly  because  looking  earnestly  at  the 
sports  of  his  comrades,  from  whom  he  was 
unwillingly  withdrawn  to  his  task,  and  thus 
furnished  the  theme  of  this  little  parable, 
only  once  mentioned  in  the  Gospels. 

We  can  study  modern  Palestine  and  the 
parts  adjacent  for  hints  of  the  realism  of  the 
time.  There  was  over  that  tiller  God's 
blessed  sunshine  ;  around  him  the  plain  ;  be- 
yond, against  the  horizon,  the  blue  hills  of 
dear  Galilee  ;  upon  him  rested  the  eyes  of 
the  Son  of  man,  and  curious,  questioning  eyes 
of  many  disciples  ;  for  He  soon  sent  forth 
the  seventy  to  preach  and  to  heal.  Clothe 
him  as  you  will,  delineate  to  your  imagina- 
tion his  form  and  face,  such  is  the  aim  of 
the  modern  Christian  realist,  but  the  man, 
ah  !  him.  His  soul  state  is  preserved  to  us 
like  the  insect  in  amber  ;  whatever  his  sur- 
roundings, his  knowledge,  or  his  labor,  we 
know  that  man.  Every  one  knows  what  it 
is  to  be  driven  like  a  slave  to  his  task,  knows 
what  it  is  to  have  an  unwilling  mind  yoked 


Obebtence  Demanbeb.  101 

to  a  compelled  body,  and  to  go  scratching 
over  the  light  soil,  driving  a  yoke  of  bullocks- 

There  is  a  small  school  of  thinkers  in 
Germany  who  endeavor  to  apply  the  laws  of 
mathematical  certitude  to  the  phenomena  of 
the  human  mind.  Thought,  feeling,  sensa- 
tions, etc.,  are  simply  representations,  which 
in  the  mind  are  opposed  to  one  another  ;  if 
one  representation  does  not  arrest  another, 
it  is  simply  lost ;  it  has  not  come  above  the 
threshold  of  consciousness. 

Just  such  a  genesis  of  ideas  our  Lord  por- 
trayed nineteen  centuries  ago  in  this  parable  ; 
desires  are  appealing  to  the  consciousness  of 
that  young  husbandman  ;  his  will  decides  the 
body  must  answer  for  its  task  ;  but  the  mind 
roams,  and  the  zigzag  furrow  testifies  of  the 
conflicting  motives  ;  these  are  representations 
in  arrest,  says  the  scientist ;  these  are  motives 
at  variance,  saith  Jesus.  "  Being  is  absolute 
position,"  says  Herbart,  neglecting  to  define 
it  ;  Christ  simply  assumes  the  existence  of 
our  eternal  natures,  and  photographs  for  all 
time  the  soul  in  travail  betwixt  two  opinions, 
the  "must"  and  the  'T  will  not."  The  plain, 
unlettered  Christian,  with  his  finger  upon  this 
text,  has,  ever  since  the  English  Bible  was 
translated,  had  more  psychology  at  his  fingers' 


102         Hen)  Concepts  of  £){b  Dogmas. 

tips  than  all  science,  until  through  Aristotle 
this  modern  school,  groping  its  way  in  the 
Stygian  darkness  of  the  soul  left  to  its  own 
native  light,  hath  at  length,  unbeknown  to 
itself,  touched  the  hem  of  the  Master's  gar- 
ment. Men  wonder  at  the  power  of  the 
English  Bible,  and  behind  it  all,  above  the 
most  obvious  things,  remains  as  one  most 
important  factor  the  soul  knowledge  that  it 
gives.  No  man  of  ordinary  education  knows 
himself  in  all  the  recesses  of  his  soul  nature, 
who  has  not  thumbed  the  New  Testament. 
And  no  gifted  philosopher,  however  much  he 
may  know  tongues  and  systems,  so  long  as 
he  allies  himself  with  the  world  spirit  which 
is  against  God,  can  ever  hope  to  attain  unto 
the  knowledge  of  the  human  heart  which  the 
devout  man  enjoys,  who  prays  God  to  en- 
lighten him  as  h^  reads,  and  who,  by  reason 
of  his  sympathetic  interest,  is  quick  to  apply 
the  teaching  to  himself  and  learn  the  height 
and  breadth  of  his  heart. 

Our  text  reveals  just  what  human  experi- 
ence declares,  that  indecision  is  the  bane  of 
life.  There  are  all  about  us  men  who  in 
their  good  moments  are  saints  and  in  their 
bad  moments  devils.  There  have  been  many 
Dick  Steeles  who  can  prepare  for  debauchery 


Obebtence  Demanbeb.  103 

by  long  dissertations  on  morality  ;  and  this 
because,  putting  their  hands  to  the  plow, 
they  look  back  ;  they  start  the  furrow  well, 
but  they  do  not  finish  it  ;  they  have  all  the 
maxims  of  commonplace  religion  on  their 
tongues,  but  they  do  not  give  the  heart  and 
purpose  to  the  case  in  hand.  Their  thought 
is  behind  them,  when  it  should  in  aspiration 
stretch  out  before  them  to  the  accomplish- 
ment of  their  labor  ;  the  allurements  of  the 
past  clog  the  will,  deaden  their  interest  in 
the  work  God  has  set  them  to  do  ;  they  zig- 
zag their  course.  The  kingdom  of  heaven 
is  not  won  in  such  a  way.  An  epistle  well 
puts  this  same  truth  :  **For  he  that  doubteth 
is  like  the  surge  of  the  sea,  driven  by  the 
wind  and  tossed."  Again,  the  same  epistle 
says,  "  The  double-minded  man  is  unstable 
in  all  his  ways."  It  is  well,  then,  for  us, 
when  our  imaginations  are  on  the  past,  that 
we  remember  to  keep  our  eyes  upon  the 
present,  because  Christ  requires  a  straight 
furrow  ;  and  that  we  do  not  allow  past  de- 
lights to  enervate  and  weaken  the  resolu- 
tion of  the  heart.  ''  Keep  thy  heart  with  all 
diligence,  for  out  of  it  are  the  issues  of  life." 
It  is,  I  think,  noticeable  that  Christ  does 
not  ask  us  to  preserve  in  our  souls  an  equi- 


104  HerD  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

librium  of  motives;  "He  that  is  not  for  me 
is  against  me."  This  presents  a  strong  con- 
trast to  much  of  the  current  thought  of  our 
time  ;  it  is  in  favor  to  say,  "  My  mind  is  in  the 
balance  ;  I  see  good  in  both  sides.  I  am  not 
able  to  declare  myself."  Indeed,  it  is  claimed 
that  it  is  a  sign  of  mental  power  that  one 
vacillates  back  and  forth  between  two  opin- 
ions, calling  forth,  as  it  did  recently  from  a 
distinguished  preacher,  the  comment  that 
such  an  equilibrium  was  proof  of  mental 
weakness  rather  than  of  stronger  qualities 
of  the  intellect.  However  that  may  be,  the 
primary  question  here  is  concerning  the 
mind  of  Christ.  His  disapproval  of  spir- 
itual indeterminateness  is  pronounced  ;  that 
man  is  portrayed  in  a  sentence,  "  He  that 
hath  his  hand  upon  the  plow,  and  looketh 
back."  Jesus  gives  no  sanction  to  divided 
affections  or  divided  metal  states.  If  you 
are  in  equilibrium,  put  yourself  out  of  it  ;  for 
that  very  pose  between  Christ  and  the 
world,  that  air  of  haughty  indifference,  that 
assumed  superiority  over  those  who  decide 
for  Him,  is  proof  final  and  conclusive  of  your 
lack.  Do  not  believe  that  a  vacillating  pur- 
pose can  win  the  guerdon  of  His  approval. 
Do    not  believe  that   an   intellectual  accept- 


£)bebtcnce  Demanbeb.  105 

ance  of  Christ  is  enough,  while  your  heart- 
strings, entwined  about  other  loves  and 
other  passions  than  His,  are  tugging  to  draw 
you  back  to  the  world. 

This  brings  us  face  to  face  with  the  fun- 
damental doctrine  of  our  text ;  that  Jesus 
Christ  demands  complete  soul  surrender  of 
heart  and  of  life  on  the  part  of  those  who 
are  true  believers.  No  qualification  can  hide 
this  blemish  ;  no  excuse  can  be  pleaded 
against  this  judgment  ;  they  are  not  fit. 
And  at  the  same  time  no  lack  can  be  pleaded 
against  those  thus  qualified  by  decision  ;  to 
criticise  the  lack  of  a  true  believer,  accord- 
ing to  Christ's  definition,  is  to  exalt  one's 
self  to  the  position  of  critic  of  the  Master. 

As  all  roads  led  of  old  to  Rome,  so  all  con- 
ceptions of  Christian  duty  lead  to  Christ.  The 
photographs  of  the  ancient  Italian  painters, 
so  far  as  they  have  come  under  my  notice, 
give  to  the  Master  a  beatific  and  exalted  ex- 
pression of  tenderness.  The  defects  of  these 
paintings  are  their  beauty,  for  which  there 
is  no  foundation  in  the  Gospels,  the  absence 
of  any  trace  of  soul  struggle,  such  as  Geth- 
semane  must  have  left  on  Him,  and  an  ap- 
pearance of  self-esteem  such  as  in  our  time 
marks  the  countenances  only  of  egotists  and 


106         Xl<^vo  (Zonc^pts  of  £)[b  Dogmas. 

mystics.  That  there  is  somewhat  of  church 
tradition  behind  these  representations,  is  un- 
doubtedly true  ;  but  at  most  it  is  only  tra- 
dition ;  they  are  church  likenesses.  The 
modern  painters  have  erred  in  giving  too 
intellectual  an  appearance  ;  you  see  superb 
intelligence,  precocious  and  brilliant  features. 
But  a  Roman  Catholic  artist,  Munkacsy, 
has  at  length  painted  a  Protestant  Christ  ;  it 
is  a  picture  of  superb  power  ;  every  form  in 
it  is  faultlessly  posed.  The  scene  is  laid  in 
the  judgment  hall.  Pilate  on  his  throne,  a 
hard  headed,  sensual  autocrat,  conscious  of 
his  strength  and  yet  doubting  whether  to  sac- 
rifice the  so-called  King  of  the  Jews  to  fanat- 
ical enemies,  is  portrayed  with  all  his  doubts 
upon  him,  as  he  listens  to  the  old  man 
Caiphas,  the  high  priest,  the  bombastic  pros- 
ecutor, who  with  swelling  indignation  and 
self-contained  manner  presents  the  substance 
of  the  charge.  Behind  Caiphas  sits  in  garnet 
robes  and  defiant  aspect  a  rich  Pharisee,  who 
with  contemptuous  and  haughty  pride  views 
the  Christ.  There  are  one  or  two  sympa- 
thetic countenances  ;  but  the  crowd  in  gen- 
eral has  the  appearance  of  being  interested 
in  the  prosecution  and  anxious  for  the  re- 
sult.     One  of  the  rabble    officiously    inflicts 


£)bebtence  Dcmanbeb.  107 

an  insult,  another  shouts  aloud,  "  Crucify 
Him  ! "  But  that  Christ  is  worth  traveling 
many  miles  to  see.  It  is  criticised,  but 
to  me  it  appears  well-nigh  faultless.  The 
God-man  is  shown  to  be  strung  with  im- 
mense tension.  His  hands,  bound  before 
Him,  alone  restrain  Him  from  vigorous  gest- 
ure, and  yet  in  all  the  pressure  under  which  He 
labors,  you  see  Him  completely  under  con- 
trol. His  face  is  that  of  one  hunted  to  death, 
but  the  resolution  which  speaketh  from  His 
eyes  is  unconquerable.  This  is  the  Galilean 
at  bay,  the  compassionate  Jesus  himself  need- 
ing compassion  ;  this  is  the  wrung  soul  which 
prayed,  "Father,  if  it  be  Thy  will,  let  this  cup 
pass  from  Me." 

A  Christ  of  such  resolution  is  the  Christ 
who  speaks  from  our  text.  At  the  time  of 
its  utterance  He  was  indeed  under  less  press- 
ure, but  He  is  the  same  uncompromising, 
fearless,  exacting  personality  in  all  things 
which  make  for  righteousness.  He  demands 
thy  unconditional  obedience. 


CARL  MARK'S  FLAGELLANTS. 

' '  If  ye    love  Me,  keep  My   commandments. ' '  — 
John  14  :  /J. 

CARL  MARK,  the  painter  of  ''The  Flagel- 
lants," was  born  in  Milwaukee.  After  an 
unsuccessful  attempt  to  support  himself  there 
as  a  painter,  in  1880  he  returned  to  Munich 
by  way  of  Boston  and  New  York.  His  con- 
nection with  a  city  so  near  us  certainly  height- 
ens the  interest  we  feel  in  his  work.  From 
1885  to  1889  he  labored  on  this  canvas, 
rather  more  than  ten  feet  wide.  This  is  ap- 
proximately half  the  length  of  time  bestowed 
by  the  mighty  Angelo  upon  "The  Last  Judg- 
ment," who  spent  seven  years  upon  but  rela- 
tively a  few  more  figures.  But  while  Angelo 
painted  no  less  than  five  distinct  paintings, 
each  one  of  which  might  have  been  dissevered 
and  been  separately  framed,  Marr  gives  us 
but  one  concept.  Notice,  too,  the  difference 
in  choice  of  subjects  ;  while  Angelo  paints 
the  resurrection  from  the  dead,  the  judgment 
seat  of  Christ,  the  condemnation  of  the 
wicked,  and  Charon  ferrying  the  souls  of  the 

(108) 


Carl  mart's  flagellants.  109 

dead  across  to  Hades,  Marr  paints  a  mediaeval 
church  scene.  Angelo  soars  on  the  wing"  of 
imagination,  and  reveals  glimpses  of  hidden 
mysteries  of  religion  which  are  the  symbols 
of  faith  ;  Marr  reveals  a  time  about  three 
centuries  previous  to  Angelo's  day,  the  like 
of  which  Angelo  himself  may  have  seen,  and 
displays  the  external  form  of  that  faith  of 
which  Angelo  gave  the  content.  That  Marr 
selects  one  of  the  excrescences  in  church  life, 
is  no  criticism  ;  it  illustrates  that  very  pecul- 
iarity, and  casts  side  light  upon  that  same 
faith.  Angelo's  *'  Last  Judgment  "  and  Marr's 
"Flagellants"  present  about  the  same  con- 
trast that  is  to  be  found  between  the  ordi- 
nary Protestant  faith  of  our  time,  and  the 
actions  of  the  colored  Christians  of  the  South 
during  the  moments  of  frenzy  in  their  relig- 
ious meetings  ;  it  is  the  content  of  faith  over 
against  the  outward  manifestation  of  what 
a  disordered  imagination  esteems  to  be  a 
natural  inference  from,  or  adjunct  of,  that 
faith.  The  devotion  of  faith  may  take  varied 
forms,  and  it  is  its  effort  to  make  some  act  or 
acts  of  devotion  of  especial  value  in  the  sight 
of  God  so  that  it  shall  prevail  for  the  forgive- 
ness of  sins.  Hence  we  find  sacrifice  per- 
verted   in    the    Old    Testament    so    that    its 


110         Xlevo  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

sacrificial  nature  is  lost  sight  of,  and  the 
sacrificial  act  comes  to  have  the  virtue  of  a 
fetich  in  itself,  until  the  Psalmist  exclaims  :  — 

"  Sacrifice  and  offering  Thou  hadst  no  delight  in; 
Mine  ears  hast  thou  opened : 
Burnt-offering  and  sin-offering  hast  Thou  not 
required. 
Then  said  I,  Lo,  I  am  come; 
In  the  roll  of  the  book  it  is  written  of  me  : 
I  delight  to  do  Thy  will,  O  my  God." 

This  is  quoted  concerning  Christ  in  the 
loth  chapter  of  Hebrews,  the  mighty  epistle 
of  the  atonement.  Similarly,  Christ  quoted 
and  explained  the  Old  Testament  in  Matt. 
9:13:  ''But  go  ye  and  learn  what  this 
meaneth,  I  desire  mercy,  and  not  sacrifice  : 
for  I  came  not  to  call  the  righteous,  but 
sinners."  So,  too,  may  we  quote  our  text : 
"If  ye  love  me,  keep  my  commandments," 
as  giving  Christ's  own  emphasis  upon  the 
ethics  of  life. 

Let  us  see  how  these  Christian  Flagellants 
illustrated  their  conception  of  faith.  They 
appeared  in  the  nth  century,  but  the  first 
widespread  impression  made  was  this  which 
arose  from  their  self- beatings  along  the 
streets  of  Perugia,  which  is  only  a  hundred 
and   fifty  miles   from   Rome  itself.     The  im- 


Carl  maw's  flagellants.  HI 

mediate  occasion  was  the  terrible  state  of 
fear  into  which  Italy  was  then  plunged  by 
the  horrors  of  the  Guelph  and  Ghibelline 
wars,  which  were  in  brief  the  Papacy  against 
the  princes  and  the  neighboring  free  cities 
of  Italy.  From  Perugia  they  spread  over 
Southern  and  Western  Europe  ;  they  reap- 
peared during  the  black  death  in  1348,  and 
during  the  famine,  pestilence,  and  war  threat- 
ened in  the  days  of  the  Turkish  invasion  of 
Europe  in  1399;  the  excitement  of  the  time 
being  heightened  by  one  of  the  periodic 
scares  of  Christendom  over  the  predicted 
end  of  the  world. 

These  are  their  prominent  appearances,  if 
we  add  that  of  1417,  when  they  were  under 
the  lead  of  St.  Vincent.  Their  minor  appear- 
ances, however,  were  numerous,  the  last  re- 
corded being  at  Lisbon,  Portugal,  in  1820. 
They  seem  to  have  formed  a  brotherhood, 
which  maintained  its  organization  through 
several  centuries.  At  some  periods  they 
were  despised  and  persecuted  by  the  church 
in  whose  bosom  they  were  nourished  and  of 
whose  doctrine  they  were  the  natural  out- 
growth. At  Perugia,  however,  at  the  time 
of  Rainer,  they  were  demonstrating  in  be- 
half of  the  Guelph  or  Papal  party.     A  writer 


112         Item  Concepts  of  £)\b  Dogmas. 

says:  ''Great  numbers  of  the  inhabitants  of 
this  city,  noble  and  ignoble,  old  and  young, 
traversed  the  streets,  carrying  in  their  hands 
leathern  thongs,  with  which,  according  to  the 
chronicle  of  the  monk  of  Padua,  '  they  drew 
forth  blood  from  their  tortured  bodies,  amid 
sighs  and  tears,  singing  at  the  same  time 
penitential  psalms,  and  entreating  the  com- 
passion of  the  Deity.*  They  laid  great  stress 
upon  the  baptism  of  blood  obtained  by  means 
of  the  scourge."  It  was  a  kind  of  national 
fast  and  humiliation  for  the  sins  of  the  peo- 
ple, by  which  they  hoped  to  escape  the  ter- 
rible bloodshed  of  their  time. 

In  Marr's  picture,  Rainer  is  a  remarkable 
figure,  clad  in  the  black  of  his  monk's  or- 
der, but  he  has  a  dark,  wolfish  face.  That 
man,  as  Marr  has  painted  him,  is  cruel,  fana- 
tical, shrewd,  determined.  At  the  one  side  is 
the  young  athlete  laying  on  the  blows  vig- 
orously, with  the  spirit  of  self  glorification 
in  his  very  pose  ;  he  has  come  out  to  show 
the  thronging  crowd  how  to  do  it,  and  hopes 
to  win  their  applause  ;  his  spirit  is  like 
that  of  the  young  Comanche  buck  in  the 
war  dance.  You  feel  you  would  like  to  be 
there  and  see  him,  he  is  so  nervy.  A  little 
behind  Rainer  is  an  old  man,  past  his  prime, 


Carl  irtarr's  flagellants.  113 

but  with  the  strength  of  his  prime  still  in 
him.  His  is  a  different  spirit  ;  a  troubled 
mind  finds  relief  in  the  self-inflicted  lash  ;  his 
bleeding  memory  finds  panacea  for  its  shame 
in  each  stinging  blow  ;  the  scourge  he  wields 
is  but  the  external  symbol  of  the  inner  casti- 
gations  of  conscience  ;  the  suffering  without 
is  the  veriest  trifle  compared  therewith,  and 
the  deeper  it  cuts  the  better,  for  a  good 
wincing  blow  doth  grant  relief  to  the  pent-up 
pressures  within.  At  the  old  man's  side  is  a 
beautiful  girl  of  fourteen  summers,  with  her 
pure  hands  folded  meekly  across  her  breast, 
her  features  expressing  the  sorrow  which  has 
been  pressed  upon  her  by  the  common  rumor 
of  the  town,  or  by  the  preaching  of  Rainer 
here  with  the  beetling  brow.  She  has  done 
nothing  to  be  repented  ;  she  has  no  thong  ; 
such  youth  and  innocence  cannot  be  so 
harshly  treated.  Rainer,  who  leads  the  pro- 
cession, is  looking  back  to  her  reservedly,  as 
if  amid  his  general  unconcern  at  the  brutality 
of  the  blood-stained  backs  he  would  refresh 
himself  by  a  half  glance  at  such  lovely  saintli- 
ness.  Beside  is  borne  upon  men's  shoulders 
a  figure  of  the  crucified  Jesus,  whom  all  pro- 
fess to  serve,  young  man,  old  man,  maiden, 
and  monk.  It  is  heavy,  graven  work,  of  more 
8 


114         Herr)  Concepts  of  £)I6  Dogmas. 

cost  than  the  price  put  upon  the  head  of 
the  matchless  Christ,  whose  image  is  only 
the  dumb,  dead  show  of  Him  whose  death 
was  priceless  as  His  life  was  unique,  and 
doubtless  inferior  to  some  other  work,  in  some 
other  Umbrian  city,  by  some  more  celebrated 
artist ;  and  yet  Perugia  in  the  first  glows  of 
its  artistic  splendor  treasures  it,  and  the  cold 
heart  of  Rainer  is  proud  to  have  it  here  at 
the  head  of  his  procession,  for  that  is  all 
which  is  given  us  in  detail  by  the  artist. 

And  here  they  bear  a  dead  image  of  Christ, 
who  have  need  enough  to  know  a  living  and 
resurrected  Son  of  God.  Suppose  this  boy, 
so  masterful,  should  look  back  and  see  instead 
of  a  wooden  thing  forming  a  part  of  street- 
show  pomp,  a  true  vision  of  the  real  Christ ; 
would  not  the  true  manliness  of  that  real 
Christ  appeal  tp  him,  so  bravely  making 
show  of  a  heroism  that  is  rudely  veiled 
brute  force  ?  and  should  he  see  the  true  hu- 
mility of  the  Son  of  man,  would  he  not  be 
stricken  dumb,  because  that  instant  the  dark- 
ness within  him  of  his  own  self-glorification 
was  overwhelmed  by  the  meekness  of  the 
gentle  Christ  ?  What  pity  that  the  old  sin- 
ner, blindly  looking  straight  ahead  and 
piteously  seeking  distraction  from  the  ever- 


Carl  Klavts  flagellants.  115 

present  wickedness  of  his  heart,  by  the  sting 
of  his  self-inflicted  blow,  might  not  look  there 
to  see  a  face  of  flesh  in  the  death  agony,  in 
order  that  sin  might  be  forgiven  and  the 
penitent  sinner  find  relief  through  a  pardon 
bought  by  blood  !  How  sweet  it  would  be 
if  that  dear  girl  should  but  look  that  way 
in  the  dew  of  her  youth  and  in  the  fresh- 
ness of  her  untainted  spirit !  If  the  old 
fox  Rainer  should  turn  there,  what  shame 
must  be  his,  when  his  malignity  and  false- 
ness stands  face  to  face  with  the  holiness  of 
the  Son  of  God.  But  this  does  not  intervene, 
the  pageant  proceeds,  bearing  the  lifeless 
image  of  a  dead  Christ. 

We  know  now  how  this  all  came  about  ; 
that  Rainer  represented  a  scheming  Papacy 
which,  seizing  upon  the  flagellant  principle, 
sporadically  and  obscurely  practiced  and  out 
of  sight,  through  its  devoted  monk  organized 
a  gigantic  and  scenic  appeal,  to  heaven  osten- 
sibly, but  really  an  appeal  to  men,  that  they 
should  rise  to  the  help  of  the  Lord's  repre- 
sentative on  earth,  and  so  end  the  sorrows  of 
the  land  by  consigning  all  of  the  earth  in 
sight  to  a  ruling  Pope,  God's  vicegerent  on 
earth.  No  wonder  the  artist  has  painted 
cunning    in    the    face    of  Rainer     the    tool- 


116         Hen?  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

The  other  figures  represent  well  the  classes 
whom  they  relied  upon  for  support,  —  the  in- 
nocent, the  remorseful,  and  the  vainglorious. 
So  it  has  ever  been  the  need,  a  living  Christ 
in  the  hearts  of  the  people ;  the  fact,  the 
living  church  dead  to  the  most  deeply  sig- 
nificant acts  of  the  life  of  Christ ;  or  to  state 
it  differently  :  the  fact,  a  living  church  of  the 
dead  Christ  reaching  out  its  Catholic  Apos- 
tolic hands — and  what  hands  they  are!  — 
for  pelf  and  power.  It  was  apprehension  of 
this  that  led  Michael  Angelo  to  paint  his 
**Pieta,"  which  represented  the  Holy  Mother 
holding  the  dead  Christ  upon  her  knees,  fit 
type  and  symbol  of  the  thought  and  attitude 
of  all  in  that  day  who  honored  the  command- 
ment of  Christ. 

The  need  of  that  age  and  the  need  of  every 
other  is  a  living  faith  in  the  true  and  real  Son 
of  God,  who  ever  liveth  in  heaven,  the  guide 
and  Ihelper  of  his  sincere  disciples  ;  the  re- 
ality, alas,  is  too  often  a  dead  faith  supplanted 
by  a  vain  hope  of  attaining  the  rewards  of 
faith  through  atoning  blood  by  the  arts  of 
self-immolation.  What  they  did  vaunt  and 
display  was  the  bleeding  back  and  the  stained 
thong,  and  this  not  alone  to  men,  but  also  to 
God,   that  ostensibly  He  might  witness  their 


Carl  Iltarr's  flagellants.  117 

frenzy  and  flaming  zeal,  and  grant  them 
deliverance  as  individual  and  nation,  in 
view  thereof.  We  can  but  think  of  the  an- 
cient trial  between  Elijah  and  the  priests  of 
Baal,  who  immolated  themselves  and  called 
loudly  upon  their  god,  amid  the  taunts  of  the 
prophet.  It  is  an  exemplification  of  the 
heathen  way,  which  considers  the  gods  ap- 
peasable by  the  sacrifices  which  a  man's 
hands  may  make.  It  is  the  spirit  of  all 
ritualism,  which  places  appeasement  in  the 
hands  of  a  priesthood,  or  rests  it  upon  some 
act  of  devotion.  Jesus  Christ  has  said,  "  If  ye 
love  me,  keep  my  commandments  ; "  and  the 
Christian  church  sayeth,  "Do  penance,  at- 
tend regularly  upon  worship,  profit  by  the 
institutions  of  religion,"  while  she  too  often 
forgetteth  to  add,  *'  But  remember  that  these 
are  of  virtue  solely  as  they  shall  be  an  assist- 
ance to  a  life  of  obedience  to  the  Holy  Lord 
Jesus,  the  shepherd  and  bishop  of  souls." 

One  has  recently  said  most  truly  :  **  Then, 
the  simple  supper-talk  with  the  twelve 
friends,  met  in  a  fellowship  sanctified  by 
prayer  and  love :  now,  an  elaborate  altar, 
jeweled  vestments,  pealing  organ,  kneeling 
and  awe-stricken  worshipers  ;  then,  meetings 
from   house   to   house  for   prayer,   Christian 


118  Hern  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

praise  and  instruction  in  the  simpler  facts  of 
the  Master's  life  and  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  His  kingdom  :  now,  churches  with 
preachers,  elders,  bishops,  sessions,  pres- 
byteries, councils,  associations,  missionary 
boards  ;  then,  a  prayer  breathing  the  com- 
mon wants  of  universal  humanity  in  a  few 
simple  petitions :  now,  an  elaborate  ritual 
appealing  to  ear  and  eye  and  imagination, 
by  all  the  accessories  which  art  and  music 
and  historic  association  combined  can  con- 
fer ;  then,  a  brotherhood  in  Jerusalem,  with 
all  things  in  common  and  a  board  of  deacons 
to  see  that  all  were  fed  and  none  were  sur- 
feited:"^ to  all  of  which  we  say,  as  did  our 
fathers  of  old.  It  is  not  of  the  Lord.  Back  to 
Christ  and  His  commandments,  or  ye  cannot 
abide  in  His  love.  Down  with  the  Flagel- 
lants ;  down  with  Ritualism  ;  yea,  down  even 
with  the  church,  if  by  it  the  true  Christ  be 
obscured,  and  fetiches  of  devotion  be  erected 
instead.  For  the  only  valid  thing  in  Chris- 
tianity is  love  and  obedience  to  God  through 
Christ,  whom  He  hath  sent. 

1  Lyman  Abbott. 


THE    FACE    OF    CHRIST. 

'■^  Seeing  it  is  God  that  said.  Light  shall  shine 
out  of  darkness,  who  shijied  in  our  hearts^ 
to  give  the  light  of  the  knowledge  of  the 
glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ.'''' 
—  2  Cor.  4  :  6. 

THIS  is  a  declaration  concerning  the  light 
which  lighteth  every  man  who  cometh 
into  the  world.  We  must  agree  with  the 
Quaker  in  asserting  the  universality  of  God's 
influence  upon  humanity  ;  we  must  agree  with 
the  revelation  contained  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, which  declares  that  the  Holy  Ghost 
reveals  the  person  of  Christ  to  the  conscious- 
ness of  believers,  so  that,  illumined,  they 
show  forth  the  true  nature  of  the  person  of 
the  world's  Redeemer.  Our  text  is  a  taking 
of  the  part  for  the  whole,  A  sample  of  the 
glory  of  God  as  revealed  in  Christ  is  obtained 
when  we  attain  true  apprehension  of  the 
character  of  God  as  revealed  in  the  face  of 
Jesus.  The  object  of  the  gospel  here  set 
forth,  which  has  sprung  up  in  so  great  splen- 
dor of  God,  is  to  scatter  its  rays  into  all  parts 
of  the  known  world,  so  that  men  shall  behold 

("9) 


120         ruvo  Concepts  of  £)I5  Dogmas. 

the  illumination  of  the  character  of  God,  as 
set  forth  best,  or  if  you  please,  adumbrated 
most  clearly  to  the  limited  capacity  of  men, 
in  the  person  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  King 
of  the  Jews. 

This  is  a  remarkable  scripture,  because  it 
implies  an  acceptance  of  the  face  as  a  measure 
of  the  man.  The  wondrous  nature  of  the 
great  Master  of  the  art  of  doing  good,  who  in 
poverty,  chastity,  and  obedience  went  about 
laden  with  compassions  for  the  sick  and  tired 
rabble  of  the  Galilean  towns,  showed  the 
depth  of  His  loving-kindness  man-ward  in 
His  face.  He  who  in  a  world  laden  with  shams 
and  fettered  by  hypocrisies  lived  honestly 
and  spake  the  truth,  spoke  out  honestly 
from  His  honest  eyes.  The  carpenter's  Son 
of  Nazareth,  prepared  by  long  years  of  medi- 
tation for  His  mission,  with  the  conscious- 
ness of  His  capacities,  and  filled  with  longing 
for  the  redemption  of  humanity,  spake  out 
the  fullness  of  His  heart  in  the  very  tremor 
of  His  silent  lips.  When  He,  who  had  in  the 
very  constitution  of  His  personality  the  pledge 
of  God's  omnipotence,  and  whose  life  was  a 
constant  endeavor  for  the  accomplishment  of 
the  eternal  purposes  of  the  Almighty  Father, 
at  length  in  the  place  of  a  skull,  at  the  hands 


C!}e  ^acii  of  CF?rt$t.  121 

of  the  greatest  military  and  commercial  power 
of  the  earth,  under  instigation  of  the  noblest 
religion  the  world  then  knew,  suffering  the 
pangs  of  death,  cries  out,  ''Father,  into  Thy 
hands  I  commend  my  spirit,"  and  turns  His 
face,  we  may  see  the  illumination  of  the  glory 
of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ.  What 
wonder  that  Wallace,  portraying  this  scene 
in  "Ben  Hur,"  makes  Simonides,  the  aged 
Jew,  answer  Hur's,  "  Now  cover  thine  eyes, 
and  look  not  up  ;  but  put  thy  trust  in  God, 
and  the  spirit  of  yon  just  Man  so  foully  slain," 
with  the  reproof:  *' Nay,  let  us  henceforth 
speak  of  him  as  the  Christ." 

The  greatest  proof  of  blood  is  said  to  be 
the  color  of  the  skin.  From  the  raised  and 
colored  sculptures  of  the  valley  of  the  Nile 
we  learn  that  there  has  been  no  change  in 
color  on  the  part  of  the  Egyptian  popula- 
tion for  a  hundred  generations  ;  the  eyes  of 
Anthony  and  Cleopatra  looked  upon  the 
swarthy  backs  of  servitors  bearing  the  same 
hues  of  skin,  as  do  the  eyes  of  the  modern 
traveler.  This  is  a  far  better  clue  to  race 
than  language  or  customs,  which  are  fre- 
quently imposed  by  conquest  or  changed  by 
contact.  The  next  most  important  witness 
to  community  of  blood  is  the  size  and  shape 


122         HctD  Concepts  of  £)[b  Dogmas. 

of  the  skull.  Cranial  similarities  are  among 
the  best  witnesses  that  God  perpetuates 
types  and  deals  with  men  in  bulk  as  nations 
and  communities,  as  well  as  with  men  indi- 
vidually. In  color  and  type  Jesus  was  a 
Hebrew ;  how  much  He  bore  the  mark  of 
His  race,  or  how  little  its  distinguishments 
distinguished  Him,  we  do  not  know.  He  was 
doubtless  Jew  enough  so  that  we  should  rec- 
ognize Him  as  such  did  He  to-day  walk  our 
streets.  But  as  men  have  portrayed,  striving 
to  bring  to  the  canvas  somewhat  of  the  con- 
cept of  the  glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Christ, 
it  has  been  a  national  face,  alien  to  what  was 
the  face  of  the  form  of  Jesus  ;  it  has  been  a 
limited  human  face,  it  has  been  a  face  lack- 
ing the  majesty  and  glory  of  God. 

Turn  over,  then,  the  noblest  prints  repro- 
ducing the  well-nigh  inspired  productions  of 
artistic  genius,  and  feast  thine  eyes  on  the 
likenesses  purporting  to  clothe  anew  to  mod- 
ern eyes  Hirri  who  is  at  the  right  hand  of  the 
throne  of  God,  and  close  the  book  and  rest 
thy  head  upon  thy  hands,  and  see  if  thy  heart 
can  accept  any  of  these  as  a  satisfaction  of 
its  ideal.  I  am  sure  the  best  that  man's  hand 
can  fashion  and  his  heart  conceive  cannot 
equal  the  glory  of  God  as  it  shines   within 


CI?e  S<^u  of  (Ll}vxst  123 

thee,  the  Holy  Ghost  being  thy  teacher.  The 
picture  is  of  earth  :  the  glory  of  God  in  the 
face  of  Jesus  Christ  is  of  heaven.  Away  with 
these  earthly  substitutes  for  the  unseen  face 
of  Christ  in  the  heavens,  away  with  the  rude 
images  of  Christ  on  the  crucifix,  away  with 
the  wayside  shrine,  the  forms  of  agony,  and 
the  rude  clots  of  blood,  away  with  the  human 
Christ  ;  give  us  the  face  of  the  Son  of  Mary 
with  the  Godhead  shining  through  it. 

Notice,  first,  that  it  is  the  glory  of  God 
in  the  face  of  humanity  that  is  to  become  a 
matter  of  knowledge  through  the  Holy  Ghost. 
The  glory  of  God  is  not  best  set  forth  by 
some  great  earthquake  scene,  some  black- 
ness and  darkness  and  tempest,  but  rather 
by  God's  glory  manifest  in  the  face  of  the 
Son  of  man.  When  Jesus  died,  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  event  and  the  glory  of  God  was 
not  to  be  found  in  the  yawning  earth,  or  the 
rocks  rent,  or  the  veil  of  the  temple  torn  in 
twain,  or  the  darkness,  but  in  the  face  of 
Him  who  upon  the  central  one  of  three  crosses 
showed  forth  in  His  features  an  illumination 
of  the  glory  of  God.  Say  how  can  that  be  ? 
that  the  glory  of  God  is  not  to  be  sought  in 
earth's  most  glorious  sunsets,  in  shadow  of 
the   mightiest   mountains,  or  on  the  bosom 


124         Xicw  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

of  the  most  picturesque  hill-locked  lake,  un- 
der the  spray  of  the  most  gigantic  waterfall, 
or  amid  the  thunder  of  its  leaping  floods,  but 
in  the  face  of  man  ?  The  answer  is  because 
God  is  something  besides  power  spelled  with 
a  large  "  P,"  because  God  is  something  more 
and  something  very  different  from  a  giant 
hurling  hill-tops  to  scoop  out  lake  basins  ; 
He  is  something  else  than  natural  law  in  its 
most  sublime  workings.  It  is  a  God  reveal- 
ing Himself  through  personality  ;  which  reve- 
lation thus  conditioned  is  certain  evidence 
that  He  is  a  person,  for  if  He  were  a  law  and 
a  cosmic  fact  merely,  men  must  learn  of 
it  by  its  manifestations,  and  religion  could 
be  comprised  in  nature,  as  in  all  atheistic 
philosophy. 

This  prepares  us  for  another  consideration  ; 
namely,  that  the  face  is  a  mirror  reflecting 
the  thoughts  and  purposes  of  the  heart.  A 
face  is  not  a  mask  ;  by  great  force  of  will  and 
long  training  it  has  sometimes  become  such 
so  far  as  the  momentary  thought  is  con- 
cerned. Such  it  notably  was  in  the  case  of 
Mr.  Disraeli,  and  of  Napoleon  the  First.  But 
even  then  the  craftiness  of  the  one  and  the 
brutality  of  the  other  shone  through  it.  You 
need  not  be  told  the  master  motive  of  their 


^(?e  ^acz  of  (Ef^rist.  125 

lives,  when  once  you  have  seen  representa- 
tion of  their  strongly  marked  faces.  Clean, 
pure  thoughted  high-mindedness  works  it- 
self out  from  the  heart  into  the  face.  The 
glory  of  God  was  in  one  face,  and  worked 
itself  out  there  from  the  heart  ;  there  was 
perpetual  benignity  on  one  brow,  perpetual 
good-will  lurked  in  the  corners  of  one  mouth, 
perfect  love  as  an  aroma  was  the  atmosphere 
around  one  personality,  perennial  kindness 
welling  up  in  one  heart  was  in  the  look  of 
the  person,  and  is  there  now  and  evermore.  In 
other  words,  the  human  heart  is  made  by  our 
text  the  interpreter  of  the  loftiest  passions  of 
the  Godhead,  and  the  human  face  is  made 
their  fitting  and  adequate  exponent. 

If  therefore  thou  wouldst  know  what  the 
face  of  Jesus  was  like,  together  with  the  su- 
peradded glory  of  the  majesty  of  God  as  an 
aureole  incorporated  in  it,  seek  thou  the  illu- 
mination of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Seek  thou  not 
to  know  the  exact  form  of  those  features,  for 
thou  couldst  only  have  the  merest  outline 
without  the  fire  of  life  and  without  the  in- 
duement  of  glory.  And  as  thou  shalt  turn 
the  leaves  of  the  familiar  narrative  of  the 
life  of  Christ  as  told  by  Apostolic  men,  or 
shalt  study  the  applications  of  the  principles 


126         Hen?  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

of  Christ  to  the  practical  duties  of  every-day 
life  as  made  in  the  Epistles,  or  shalt  strive 
to  unravel  the  hidden  thing  in  the  uncouth 
book  of  Revelation,  ask  the  blessing  of  God 
that  thou  mayest  learn  aright  the  lesson  of 
obedience,  and  mayest  have  superadded  a 
better  understanding  of  the  glory  of  God  as 
revealed  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ.  And 
thou  shalt  grope  after  that  likeness,  but  shalt 
not  see  it ;  and  everything  that  thy  imagina- 
tion conjurest  up  will  be  found  to  be  some 
recollection  of  painting  or  picture  of  Christ 
refurbished  up,  and  thou  shalt  be  more  con- 
scious than  ever  of  the  blank  that  is  pre- 
sented to  the  eye  of  him  who  would  gain  a 
definite  idea  of  the  appearance  of  the  face 
of  the  Master. 

But  pray  on  and  enter  more  and  more  into 
fellowship  with  the  sufferings  of  Jesus  by  the 
way  of  self-denial,  and  go  out  in  service  of 
Him,  bearing  thy  cross  with  the  fullest  inten- 
tion, God  helping,  to  carry  that  cross  to  the 
place  of  crucifixion  for  that  motive  which 
makes  thy  cross  a  possibility  to  thy  heart. 
Enter  more  and  more  into  sympathy  with  the 
mind  of  Jesus  in  its  evident  purpose  to  do 
good  to  every  living  being  in  so  far  as  He 
had  opportunity.  And  as  thou  prayest,  thou 
shalt  be  conscious  of  a  presence  with  thee, 


CI?e  ^acz  of  Cl^rist   '  127 

thou  shalt  live  under  the  inspiration  of  a 
personality.  As  in  various  acts  of  life  thou 
shalt  live  in  fashion  presented  by  the  attitude 
of  that  personality  toward  the  problems  of 
pure  being,  and  shalt  find  in  this  and  that 
scripture  the  relation  of  that  wondrous  per- 
son delineated  with  precision,  there  will  dawn 
upon  thy  understanding  a  revealed  soul 
power  of  exceeding  largeness.  In  your  ideal 
of  that  person,  righteousness,  honor,  and  truth 
shall  have  their  place,  the  compassions  will 
be  found  in  all  fullness  in  Him  ;  righteousness 
and  mercy  will  be  found  to  have  kissed  each 
other ;  benignity  and  justice  will  be  seen 
harmonious.  And  though  the  world  cannot 
produce  anthentic  features  of  the  Son  of  man 
who  is  the  Son  of  God,  helped  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  thou  shalt  be  conscious  of  the  illumina- 
tion of  the  glory  of  God,  which  must  be  in 
that  face,  its  compassions,  its  loves,  its  hopes, 
its  hates,  its  responsibilities,  its  wanness  from 
cares,  its  sorrows  so  deep,  its  anguish  of  death 
so  unspeakable.  And  thou  shalt  know  of  a 
truth  that  thy  illumination  is  of  God  the 
Spirit,  and  that  the  glory  of  God  which  is  as 
an  illumination  of  the  face  of  Jesus,  thou  hast 
knowledge  of  in  thy  heart  ;  thou  hast  His 
attributes,  thou  knowest  the  marks  which 
will  lead  thee  to  His  face. 


THE  STRICKEN  CHRIST. 

^^  He  hath  no  forf/i  nor  co?neliness  ;  and  when 
we  shall  see  Him,  there  is  no  beauty  that 
we  should  desire  Him. ' '  —  Isa.  jj  :  2. 

THE  Christian  who  has  carried  his  faith 
beyond  commonplace  morality,  and  has 
bowed  his  spirit  before  the  unique  presence 
of  the  Son  of  man,  cannot  fail  to  think  what 
must  have  been  the  form  and  mien,  the  face 
and  expression,  of  the  Nazarene.  Other  art- 
ists may  paint  the  mythological  heathen  gods, 
Landseer  may  paint  lions,  Barye  may  fashion 
griffins  or  any  uncouth  beast  unknown  ex- 
cept to  his  own  imagination.  Church  may 
paint  landscapes,  Holman  Hunt  faces,  Watt 
portraits  and  allegory ;  but  the  man  who 
paints  for  Christendom  is  the  man  who  paints 
the  face  of  Jesus  Christ.  To  the  Christian 
believer  all  art  is  as  nothing  compared  with 
Christian  art  centering  in  Christ  ;  all  art 
lacking  its  consummate  flower  and  being, 
as  a  plant  that  never  blossoms,  if  it  does 
not  present  in  the  highest  type  of  its  gen- 
ius adequate  representation  of  Him  who  was 
(128) 


^l}t  Stnchn  €l}txst  129 

more  than  Shakespeare,  for  whom  Bacon  wrote 
his  plays,  because  the  stars  presided  over  His 
birth,  and  the  supernatural  was  in  one  or- 
ganism fully  in  touch  with  mundane  things. 
That  the  problem  is  difficult  goes  without 
the  saying.  The  abstractions  of  justice, 
purity,  virtue,  and  philanthropy  are  in  their 
nature  absolute  and  characteristic  only  of 
God  the  Supreme  ;  and  these  not  dependently 
suggested,  but  in  union  with  Omnipotence 
must  be  co-joined  and  co-terminate  a  finitude 
which  we  who  are  men  have  in  a  narrow  tene- 
ment of  perishable  clay,  so  dependent  upon 
environment  that  the  least  dislocation  of  the 
eternal  law  of  nature  whisks  us  out  of  being 
in  a  second,  a  flight  of  space  in  which  the 
winged  message  of  modern  life  will  leap 
underneath  the  oceans  and  connect  the  hemi- 
spheres. That  weakness  which  in  a  second 
of  time  is  as  nothing,  leaving  a  destroyed 
body  and  having  a  spirit  translated  from 
earth  to  Elysium,  '*  This  day  shalt  thou  be 
with  me  in  Paradise  "  illustrating  the  power 
of  God  in  translation  from  earth  to  heaven  in 
the  same  space  of  time  in  which  man  makes 
his  greatest  triumph  over  nature  in  the  elec- 
tric circuit,  this  weakness  which  at  best  can 
only  meet   the  wear  and  tear  of  its  environ- 

9 


130  HetD  Concepts  of  £)I6  Dogmas. 


ment,  less  than  a  hundred  years  out  of  eter- 
nity, must  be  united  with  the  attributes  of 
the  Godhead,  its  repose  and  power,  in  the 
face  of  One  on  canvas  to  express  with  any 
true  realism  Jesus  Christ  to  a  human  heart. 
Michael  Angelo  and  Raphael  must  have 
known  God.  Munkacsy,  the  artist  of  "Christ 
before  Pilate,"  must  know  God  ;  the  artist 
of  the  future  must  know  the  heavenly  Spirit 
and  the  King  of  kings,  and  must  cease  to 
grovel  with  sense  and  time  perceptions  only. 
In  the  ancient  history  of  the  church,  three 
types,  illustrating  three  concepts  of  the  char- 
acter of  Christ,  have  been  left  as  imperish- 
able memorials  of  the  faith  of  long  ago. 
There  is  the  young  and  fair  Christ  of  the 
Western  Church,  the  Christ  which  modern 
Christendom  has  succeeded  to  historically, 
and  illustrated,  by  the  tendency  of  modern 
artists  to  portray  Christ  in  the  temple  as 
do  Hoffman  and  Holman  Hunt.  Then  there 
is  the  middle-aged  Christ  of  the  Greek  or 
Eastern  Church,  a  Christ  of  unusual  maturity 
for  his  years,  perhaps  the  truest  Christ  be- 
cause the  home  Christ,  that  is,  the  Christ 
ideal  affected  by  the  local  traditions  which 
hung  about  the  place  of  His  nativity.  Finally, 
there  is  the  monkish  Christ,  authority  for  this 


CI?e  Strtcfen  €l}v\st  131 

last  conception  being  derived  from  the  text 
of  the  morning  :  **  He  hath  no  form  nor  come- 
liness ;  and  when  we  see  Him,  there  is  no 
beauty  that  we  should  desire  Him."  The 
Oberammergau  Christ  is  that  of  a  reformer 
and  somewhat  of  this  type.  The  Christ 
of  the  great  Russian  painter  Gay,  recently 
brought  to  notice,  is  plainly  to  be  classed 
here  ;  it  is  a  well-nigh  demented  beggar  who 
faces  the  hard-headed  wicked  Roman  gov- 
ernor, Pontius  Pilate.  That  the  monk  who 
lived  a  holy  life  in  his  cell  apart  from  men 
should  foster  this  ascetic,  sorrowful  ideal, 
and  make  it  famous,  is  not  strange.  For 
gloomy  views  of  life,  destiny,  and  religion 
must  needs  effect  such  an  end.  Men  in  gen- 
eral have  never  been  able  to  assent  to  the 
Greek  canon  of  taste  which  declares  that 
physical  beauty  and  moral  health  are  co- 
terminous in  personalities. 

From  Socrates  to  William  Lloyd  Garrison 
the  men  who  in  civilized  nations  have  had 
most  conscience  and  native  moral  power,  have 
almost  without  exception  been  lacking  in  per- 
sonal beauty.  The  American  people,  whose 
Greatheart  was  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  whose 
Nestor  was  Washington,  have  not  come  to 
regard  it  as  essential  to  great  moral  endow- 


132         Hero  Concepts  of  £)\b  Dogmas. 

ments.  There  is  nothing  said  in  the  New 
Testament  either  way,  but  this  we  can  say, 
that  they  who  have  great  bitterness  of  soul 
struggle,  and  who  with  great  purity  and  lofti- 
ness of  purpose  meet  evil,  show  their  buffetings 
in  their  faces,  ourselves  being  judges.  Yet 
there  is  nothing  in  a  face,  one  way  or  another. 
We  would  commit  no  man  to  jail  for  his  looks 
nor  would  we  hate  him  unheard.  The  heart 
is  the  essential  feature,  and  out  of  the  heart 
the  mouth  speaketh.  No  man  shall  be  com- 
pelled by  his  address  to  overcome  our  dislike, 
like  the  French  orator  who  must  needs  in  the 
first  fifteen  minutes  dissipate  by  his  eloquence 
the  bad  impression  made  by  his  ugly  face. 

There  is  no  virtue,  then,  in  itself  in  beauty 
or  its  lack,  but  nevertheless  the  great  act  of 
the  life  of  Christ  is  one  of  repulsive  nature. 
All  other  acts  are  commonplace  beside  ;  His 
death  is  stamped  as  a  divinely  wrought  office, 
an  act  full  of  His  deity  and  son-ship,  an  act 
fraught  with  more  meaning  than  anything  else 
He  did.  Every  other  office  of  His  life  might 
be  attributed  to  human  nature  suitably  en- 
^dowed.  This  alone  is  devoid  of  significance 
if  He  is  merely  an  endowed  man.  Did  He  die 
as  Socrates  died,  an  unjustly  accused  person, 
hounded  by  enemies,  yet  innocent,  magnani- 


C{?e  Strtcfen  Cf?nst.  133 

mous,  and  calm  ?  or  did  he  die  as  Jesus 
Christ  ?  Dodge  it  you  cannot,  that  the  su- 
premest  moment  of  the  Nazarene's  earthly 
career,  that  calculated  to  give  type  to  faith, 
that  which  sets  the  seal  upon  the  whole  trans- 
action of  His  life  as  altogether  of  God  and  not 
of  man,  reveals  the  distressed,  anguish-laden 
features  of  one  in  death  pangs,  by  cruel 
agony  smitten  ;  it  is  the  awful  and  repulsive 
face  of  Jesus  on  the  cross,  the  Saviour  of 
sinners,  which  is  transmitted  to  history. 

But  men  are  suffering  all  about  us,  and 
while  we  do  not  believe  that  it  is  punish- 
ment of  necessity,  we  cannot  tell  what  meas- 
ure of  it  may  be  due  to  violation  of  God's 
law  in  this  generation  or  the  last.  This  Man 
was  sinless  and  had  a  sinless  nature,  and  the 
very  fact  of  that  sinlessness  makes  eager  the 
onlooker  to  know  why  the  just  must  needs 
suffer.  But  we  forget  the  face  of  Him  writh- 
ing in  pain  ;  let  us  remember  the  dead,  we 
say,  as  we  saw  them  in  life  ;  let  us  forget  all 
that  lies  between  the  glimpse  we  had  of 
health  and  strength  and  happiness  in  an- 
other and  better  day.  But  Jesus  Christ,  by 
the  miracle  of  His  death,  would  keep  alive 
His  passion.  Men  might  well  close  their  eyes 
on  this  tragedy,  and  refuse  to  view  it ;  no 


134         Hem  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas, 

man  can  peruse  the  account  of  it  at  the 
close  of  a  series  of  readings  in  the  Gospels 
without  eyes  blinded  by  tears  which  have 
arisen  unbidden. 

But  however  much  we  would  put  from  us 
thought  of  a  bleeding,  dying  Christ  nailed  to 
a  wooden  cross,  His  dear  flesh  torn  and  bleed- 
ing, His  human  nature  ebbing  slowly  away, 
His  heart  crying  out  to  the  Father  in  His  un- 
utterable anguish,  Christ  commands  against 
that  oblivion  ;  He  would  be  seated  in  our 
hearts  with  a  presence  full  of  suffering,  un- 
comely in  its  anguish,  a  personality  of  sor- 
rows, acquainted  with  grief;  and  the  face  at 
first  hidden  from  Him  must  be  turned  to- 
ward Him,  and  the  averted  eyes  must  be 
raised  in  faith.  Is  this  not  repulsive,  this 
Jew  raised  upon  the  cross  of  a  malefactor  ? 
Yes,  says  the  skeptic,  you  have  a  bloody, 
uncomely,  hateful  religion.  Indeed  there  is 
no  form,  no  comeliness,  in  the  Crucified,  that 
men  should  desire  Him.  He  was  a  man  of 
sorrows,  acquainted  with  grief 

There  are  three  great  lessons  in  that  ter- 
rible scene.  First,  it  is  a  revelation  of  the 
love  of  God.  No  easy-chair  philosopher 
could  teach  this.  Christ  in  his  miracle- 
working    tours    about    Galilee    never   could 


CF?e  Stnchn  <Zl}vxst   .  135 

have  taught  it.  Socrates  could  say,  **  No 
evil  thing  can  happen  to  a  good  man."  But 
it  needed  the  death  of  the  cross,  the  humilia- 
tion and  anguish  of  it,  the  poor,  distressed 
piece  of  flesh  upon  it,  to  point  men  to  the 
love  of  God  for  sinners.  Love,  even,  is  not 
manifest  by  the  hermit  in  his  cell,  but  by  the 
sufferings  of  torture  and  spoliation  of  death. 
Love  only  can  be  proven  by  the  sacrifice  of 
earthly  circumstance  and  by  sufferings  to  the 
end.  Friendship  never  crosses  the  dead  line 
of  danger  ;  its  mein  and  presence  there  are 
transformed  ;  it  then  is  love,  and  not  till  then. 
Only  because  God  loved,  Christ  suffered.  But 
that  love  He  would  have  us  remember  in  all 
the  repulsive  agony  of  its  circumstance  to 
burn  into  the  fiber  of  human  hearts  as  with 
caustic  the  words,  *'  God  so  loved  the  world 
that  He  gave  His  only  begotten  Son,  that 
whosoever  believeth  on  Him  should  not  per- 
ish, but  have  everlasting  life."  Is  it  repul- 
sive ?     It  was  for  thee  ! 

He  suffered  also  that  we  might  see  His  self- 
denial  in  it  all.  Sin  and  misery  walked  hand 
in  hand  through  the  world  countless  ages  be- 
fore Christ  came  ;  they  were  so  walking  then  ; 
they  were  apart  from  Him  ;  they  sat  at  every 
board,  and  were  unwelcome  guests,  sooner  or 


136         Xlew  Concepts  of  015  Dogmas. 

later,  of  every  household.  As  the  burden- 
bearer  of  others,  it  behooved  Christ  to  suffer. 
He  was  sinless,  but  behold  the  Man  turning 
His  face  toward  us  in  the  extremity  of  His 
anguish.  Why  a  sufferer,  save  that  He  bore 
the  load  of  others  ?  And  this  hateful  matter 
—  sin — which  thus  constrained  the  Son  of 
God  and  shattered  His  peace,  is  thus  seen  to 
be  an  overflowing  cup  of  wrath.  It  surged 
up  against  the  foundations  of  the  throne  of 
God,  and  brought  the  Son  into  the  swellings 
of  Jordan.  It  broadens  its  curse  wider  than 
its  natural  bed,  and  pours  its  seething  waters 
of  destruction  over  the  hearts  of  the  pure 
and  good  around.  As  it  made  Him  suffer, 
so  it  shall  make  thee  suffer.  As  the  sin  of 
the  world  was  visited  upon  Him,  so  thy 
sin  is  on  His  head,  so  thy  sin  is  broader 
than  thyself,  and  reaches  out,  blackening  and 
injuring  others.  Sin  has  its  curse  for  all,  and 
sets  its  seal  of  sorrow  upon  the  upturned 
brow  of  many  an  innocent  person.  Thou 
who  brandest  another,  turn  and  behold  the 
Man  of  Sorrows,  and  let  the  depth  of  His 
bearing  of  your  penalty  of  sin  in  His  own 
body  on  the  tree  be  constant  reminder  of  the 
awful  attitude  of  the  transgressor  toward  his 
kind.     The  Man  without  form  or  comeliness 


CI?c  Sivxchn  Cf^rtst.  137 

is  before  thee,  to  be  a  constant  reminder  of 
the  sinfulness  of  sin.  Love,  self-denial,  and 
penalty  are  there, — love  such  as  thou  must 
bear  to  others  if  thou  shalt  have  the  love  of. 
God  as  a  free  gift  ;  self-denial  such  as  thou 
must  exercise  in  veri-similitude  if  His  denial 
shall  avail  for  thee  ;  penalty  for  the  trans- 
gression of  others  the  common  burden  of  the 
good.  This  anguish-torn  One  is  to  meet  us 
at  the  memorial  table  to-day,  and  by  the  un- 
comeliness  of  His  face  to  give  the  seal  of 
thankfulness  and  make  strong  our  resolution 
against  evil. 


THE  APPEALING  CHRIST. 

'''■Behold,  I  stand  at  the  door  and  knock. ''^  — 
Rev.  J  :  20. 

THOUGH  Christ  is  the  Son  of  the  eternal 
Father,  yet  he  had  not  the  pomp  of 
an  earthly  king.  As  we  take  upon  our  lips 
these  words  which  form  our  text,  "  Behold, 
I  stand  at  the  door  and  knock,"  notwith- 
standing the  centuries  of  human  thought  in 
Christian  things,  in  the  light  of  which  we  in- 
terpret everything  Jesus  did,  our  hearts  are 
awestruck,  as  when  above  the  clouds  we  look 
down  into  the  chasm  between  the  mountains, 
or  look  up  from  the  foothills  from  which  they 
rise  to  the  mighty  peaks,  snow-capped  and 
ice-crowned,  that  hold  their  lofty  heads  eter- 
nally in  the  heavens.  Every  man  that  ever 
knew  of  Jesus  Christ  has  been  conscious  of 
an  overtopping  moral  sublimity  in  Him,  of 
a  spiritual  excellence  of  character  that  was 
unique,  and  of  a  personality  that  was  un- 
approachable among  the  sons  of  men.  Any- 
body may  give  you  a  hundred  reasons  why 
you  should  not  be  a  Christian,  good,  sober 
(138) 


C{}e  2XppeaItng  Cl^rist.  139 

reasons  too,  as  you  yourself  admitted,  each 
of  which  made  appeal  to  the  reason  alone. 
Yet  there  is  not  a  person  here  that  has  tried 
this  way,  so  acceptable  to  modern  intelligence 
and  so  in  keeping  with  the  spirit  of  the  times, 
but  what,  after  the  reasoning  was  over,  when 
intellectual  languor  was  gone,  and  every 
argument  was  battled  through,  found  himself 
more  convinced  than  ever,  and  that  his  hun- 
dred reasons  against  had  really  been  trans- 
formed into  a  substantial  reason  why  he 
should  open  his  heart  to  Jesus  the  Nazarene. 
The  ordinary  man  does  not  frame  a  hundred 
answers,  but  he  has  his  questionings,  three 
or  four,  more  or  less.  Let  us  see  what  some 
of  these  are. 

Question  i  :  "  There  are  no  modern  mira- 
cles like  those  which  the  Gospels  say  Christ 
wrought."  We  answer,  What  of  it  ?  who  said 
there  were  }  Our  care  is  whether  these  once 
occurred  ;  according  to  our  thinking,  it  is  no 
matter  if  the  page  of  miracles  has  been  a 
blank  from  that  day  until  this. 

Question  2  :  "  The  Old  Testament,  accord- 
ing to  the  Higher  Criticism,  is  not  what  Jesus 
thought  it  was  ;  can  you  believe  He  was 
divine.-*"  We  answer:  If  Christ's  knowledge 
of  the    Old    Testament    were   faulty,    which, 


140  Herp  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

however,  we  do  not  concede,  it  simply  shows 
in  striking  manner  the  human  limitations  of 
the  Son  of  God.  We  may  be  heretics  all  of 
us,  like  ancient  Eutyches  of  old,  denounced 
by  the  church  because  in  magnifying  the  di- 
vinity of  the  Son  of  God  he  forgot  that  He 
was  also  the  Son  of  man,  and  that  He  had 
for  most  part  the  limitations  of  humanity. 

Question  3  :  "  How  can  the  innocent  bear 
the  penalty  of  the  guilty  ?  and  how  can  you 
accept  the  Scripture  doctrine  that  the  death 
of  a  sinless  Christ  is  essential  to  the  salvation 
of  sinful  men  .?"  We  answer  :  Sin  is  continu- 
ally exacting  penalties  of  the  innocent  ;  "  the 
iniquities  of  the  fathers  are  visited  upon  the 
children  to  the  third  and  fourth  generation  ; " 
the  fact,  then,  of  penalty  being  exacted  of 
innocency  is  nothing  strange,  it  is  the  law 
of  human  life.  When  therefore,  in  the  full- 
ness of  time,  the  guiltless  of  his  own  free 
will  accepts  in  the  fullness  of  his  humanity 
a  measure  of  that  penalty  which  is  exacted 
relentlessly  from  innocence,  I  can  but  rejoice 
that  it  is  so,  when  this  assumption  of  pen- 
alty doth  produce  moral  and  spiritual  results. 
Furthermore,  I  cannot  see  how  I  can  save 
myself  out  of  my  sin,  unless  sinlessness  shall 
be  in  some  way  yoked  to  my  redemption. 


CF?e  ^Tppealtng  CI?nst.  141 


We  might  continue  answering  these  ques- 
tions further,  giving  a  sermon  in  a  sentence, 
but  these  suffice  to  illustrate  how  it  is  that 
the  Christian  church,  answering  as  reason- 
able men  the  leading  questions  that  are  put, 
gains  strength  in  conviction  that  the  duty  lies 
heavy  upon  every  person  to  open  his  heart  to 
the  knock  of  the  living  Christ. 

It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  the  church's 
testimony  is  discounted  by  the  world  out- 
side ;  they  say,  *'  You  believe,  and  we  expect 
you  to  override  in  your  special  pleading  any 
seeming  obstacle ;  we  expect  you  to  con- 
clude your  argument  with  a  statement  that 
you  are  sincere  and  that  you  are  right ;  we 
do  not,  however,  so  regard  the  questions 
at  issue."  It  is  to  be  remarked  that  un- 
believers have  not  only  failed  to  convince 
the  church,  but  they  have  failed  to  convince 
themselves.  And  while  the  facts  of  science 
have  always  proved  a  perfect  arsenal  out  of 
which  to  draw  weapons  for  faith,  so  that  the 
church  defending  its  dogma  in  different  ways 
yet  maintains  the  same  system  of  revealed 
truth,  it  is  remarkable  that  science  is  never 
satisfied  that  it  has  invented  the  perfect  argu- 
ment which  is  altogether  irrefutable  against 
that  citadel  of  revealed  truth. 


142         Xlcw  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

Dissentient  philosophy  has  gone  back  to 
pre-Platonic  forms  of  atheistical  belief,  and 
done  nothing"  more  serious  than  lie  about  the 
age  of  its  error  by  affirming  that  materialism 
was  new  ;  or  back  to  neo-Platonism,  making 
all  religions  a  development  from  which  the 
science  of  religion  was  to  be  deduced,  declar- 
ing all  miracles  of  the  orient  on  a  par  with 
the  miraculous  in  Christianity,  and  denying 
the  reliability  of  the  authentic  memoirs  we 
call  the  Gospels  ;  or  in  Positivism  has  gone 
back  to  earliest  phase  of  irreligion,  declaring 
the  phenomena  discovered  by  the  senses  to 
be  all  there  is  in  the  universe  ;  or  panthe- 
istically  with  Fichte,  Schlegel,  Hegel,  has 
made  God  in  one  way  or  another  this  time 
vesture  of  the  eternal  we  call  the  universe  ; 
or  at  last,  as  culmination  of  all  its  thought 
dissatisfied  with  its  own  tergiversations,  con- 
fessing by  the  act  its  own  Impotence,  in 
Agnosticism  has  declared  of  all  these  things 
there  is  nothing  beyond  cavil,  we  do  not 
know  what  to  believe.  In  other  words,  un- 
believing thinking  in  England,  Europe,  and 
America  is  self-stultified  from  an  intellectual 
standpoint,  and  proclaims  mental  imbecility 
in  the  very  sphere  of  reason  to  which  it 
has   made    appeal.      It   turns  to  the  church, 


C^e  2XppeaItn9  Christ.  143 

and  saith,  "You,  however,  cannot  convince 
me."  To  this  we  reply,  Very  likely  we 
cannot,  but  we  have  convinced  ourselves, 
and  maintain  the  substance  of  our  dogma  in 
marked  contrast  with  your  transformations. 
We  can  present  a  long  list  of  Christian  think- 
ers of  the  highest  intellectual  endowment  and 
the  fullest  achievement,  who  have  found  in 
Christian  believing  intellectual  and  moral  sat- 
isfaction. 

I  will  cite  a  few  typical  names.  There 
is  Faraday,  the  great  master  in  physics, 
and  chemistry,  at  whose  shrine  last  year 
English  science  burned  fresh  incense  as  to 
the  memory  of  a  wizard  of  repute  on  the 
occasion  of  the  centenary  of  his  birth  ;  of 
whom  Lord  Raleigh  on  that  occasion  said  : 
'*  By  a  series  of  experiments  he  indicated  all 
the  phenomena  of  electrical  induction,  and 
proved  the  complete  identity  of  electricity 
in  the  lightning  with  that  in  the  Voltaic 
cell."  There  is  the  name,  too,  of  Gladstone, 
of  whom,  though  it  may  be  said  that  his  repu- 
tation has  passed  its  zenith,  it  yet  remains 
that  in  point  of  pure  intellect  it  is  much  to 
be  doubted  if  England  has  often  furnished 
his  equal.  Another  name  is  that  of  Spurgeon 
the  lion-hearted,  the  last  great  organ  voice 


144        Xttxo  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

of  English-speaking  preachers,  the  last  great 
Puritan,  and   the  last    great   saint ;    the   man 
who  preached  the  same  gospel  at  the  close 
of  his  ministry  that  he  did  at  the  beginning  ; 
the  modern  Paul,  who  finished  his  course  and 
kept  the  faith.      These  are  three  names  out 
of  myriads,  but  each  of  different  type  ;   they 
are    scientist,   statesman,   and   pietist.     Each 
had  diverse  temperament,  each  was  similarly 
gifted,  in  degree,  with  extraordinary  talents, 
but    each    had   Christian   faith,   and   they   all 
illustrate  to  what  a  variety  of  reflective  pow- 
ers and   personal  temperament  Jesus  Christ 
may  be  the  greatest  good,  if  they  but  open 
their  hearts  to  Him.     Each  of  these  men,  if 
a  skeptic,  would  have  chosen  a  diverse  form 
of  skepticism  ;    Spurgeon   had   been  a  mate- 
rialist, Gladstone  had  been  a  Pantheist,  and 
Faraday    had    been    a    Positivist.      I   do    not 
claim  that  as  Christians  they  held  precisely 
the  same  opinions,  indeed  upon  many  points 
they  differed  much  ;  but  behind  all  they  each 
had  a  common  Christian  faith,  all   of  which 
unity,  so  wonderful  and  so  magnificent,  is  to 
be  traced  to  the  fact  that  a  knocking  Christ 
did    have    open    hearts    in    three    consenting 
minds.     We  present  them  as  types  of  faith, 
as  witnesses  of  the  reasonable  nature  of  Chris- 


Cl?e  Appealing  Cl^rtst.  145 

tian  doctrine,  and  as  proofs  of  the  power  of 
Christ  in  the  heart.  But  emasculate  Him  as 
much  as  you  will,  cut  off  miracles,  deny  His 
divinity,  defame  His  church,  do  despite  to 
His  grace,  and  put  Him  to  an  open  shame, 
yet  there  is  more  left  than  you  dreamed 
when  you  began. 

That  is  your  experience  and  it  is  mine. 
It  is  likewise  the  experience  of  the  greatest 
minds  who  have  undertaken  to  loosen  the 
hold  of  Christ  upon  humanity.  Like  Thomas 
Paine,  they  tell  a  friend  to  believe  if  he  can, 
knowing  well  that  believing  is  better  than 
unbelief,  and  hath  intellectual  satisfaction  as 
well  as  spiritual  peace.  Or  like  Webster  they 
confess  that  though  philosophic  doubts  have 
disturbed  their  peace,  yet  at  length  there  is 
a  soulful  calm  when  to  the  knock  of  the 
Crucified  there  is  the  response  of  an  open 
heart.  Or  when,  having  written  books  to 
disprove  Christian  faith,  notwithstanding  the 
fruits  of  their  labors,  they  have  confessed  to 
the  unique  power  of  the  life  of  Christ  and 
His  matchless  teaching.  I  take  but  a  single 
quotation  from  Renan's  "Life  of  Jesus."  He 
says  on  page  215:  "Repose  now  in  Thy 
glory,  noble  Founder,  Thy  work  is  finished  ; 
Thy  divinity  is  established.  Fear  no  more  to 
10 


146        HctD  doncepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

see  the  edifice  of  Thy  labors  fall  by  any  fault- 
Henceforth,  beyond  the  reach  of  frailty,  Thou 
shalt  witness,  from  the  heights  of  divine 
peace,  the  infinite  results  of  Thy  acts.  At 
the  price  of  a  few  hours  of  suffering,  which 
did  not  even  reach  Thy  grand  soul.  Thou 
hast  bought  the  most  complete  immortality. 
For  thousands  of  years,  the  world  will  defend 
Thee.  Banner  of  our  contests.  Thou  shalt  be 
the  standard  about  which  the  hottest  battle 
will  be  given.  A  thousand  times  more  alive, 
a  thousand  times  more  beloved  since  Thy 
death  than  during  Thy  passage  here  below, 
Thou  shalt  become  the  corner-stone  of  hu- 
manity so  entirely  that  to  tear  Thy  name 
from  this  world  would  be  to  rend  it  to  its 
foundations."  Illustrative  this  of  a  whole 
class  of  thinkers  and  their  unwilling  testi- 
mony to  the  matchless  character  of  the 
unique  Christ.  I  repeat,  that  every  man 
that  knows  of  Him  is  impressed  by  Him, 
and  that  the  moral  grandeur  of  His  char- 
acter is  the  wonderment  of  the  ages. 

It  is  for  such  a  personality  that  we  plead  to- 
day, arguing  that  He  to  whom  skeptics  pay 
tribute  and  whom  Christians  adore,  being  one 
and  the  same  person,  the  agreement  of  these 
witnesses,  the  willing  and  the  unwilling,  doth 
give  sure  ground  to  the  feet.     We  cannot  be 


tr^e  2(ppealtng  Cf^rtst,  147 

mistaken  ;  the  Christ  is  divine,  and  He  is 
knocking  at  the  door  of  the  heart.  He  upon 
whom  kings  might  fawn  is  thy  suppliant 
friend,  asking  you  to  receive  Him, —  is  thy 
loving  guest  if  thou  wilt  but  have  Him. 

Truly,  we  do  not  believe  that  intellectual 
difficulties  separate  between  men  and  Christ. 
There  are  too  many  great  men  and  too  many 
bright  men  who  are  devout  Christians  for  me 
to  admit  that  infidelity  is  to  be  reckoned  a 
sign  of  superior  intelligence.  The  unbelief 
which  places  itself  hostile  to  all  the  Christian 
religion  can  produce,  is  often  an  eccentricity 
cultivated  for  effect  ;  but  it  is  my  deliberate 
opinion  that  when  atheism  is  honest,  it  is  a 
sign  of  an  abnormal  character  or  of  low  in- 
telligence, which  may  be  accurately  graded 
by  the  extent  of  the  unbelief.  God  has  set 
too  many  witnesses  of  himself  all  about  us 
for  any  man  of  bright  parts  to  be  altogether 
oblivious  thereto.  I  believe,  further,  that  a 
doubt  that  cannot  be  mastered,  itself  is  a  sure 
sign  of  indeterminate  mental  qualities  which 
will  show  themselves  in  other  departments  of 
the  person's  experience.  The  man  who  has 
not  the  decisive  traits  of  character  to  be  the 
successful  head  of  even  a  small  enterprise  in 
business  or  in  shop,  has  not  the  necessary 
quality  for  the  mastery  of  chance  doubts,  all 


148        Xitvo  <£onc^Tpts  of  £)16  Dogmas. 

of  which  are  sure  of  solution  to  the  patient, 
inquiring  mind.  I  pray  you  not  to  consider 
this  as  abusive,  it  is  not  so  intended,  but  only 
to  bring  the  mind  ready  for  a  further  state- 
ment in  the  matter  before  us. 

The  reason  why  men  will  not  receive  the 
pleading  Christ,  is  to  be  traced  to  their  un- 
willingness of  heart.  Christ  is  a  personality 
of  abounding  moral  perfections,  and  He  makes 
claim  upon  us  of  a  moral  sort.  In  ordinary 
experience  it  is  to  be  doubted  whether  any 
person  fails  of  thus  apprehending  Him.  With 
all  consciousness  of  His  uniqueness  and  the 
plain  duty  of  submitting  mind  and  heart  to 
His  law,  eschewing  what  He  forbids,  hating 
what  He  hates,  knowing  our  duty  in  the 
domain  of  morals,  I  fear  that  we  deliber- 
ately deny  the  knock  of  the  appealing  Christ. 
This  pulpit,  then,  takes  up  daily  the  mission 
of  preaching  the  divine  call  to  salvation  with 
the  distinct  conviction  that  the  reason  why 
men  do  not  yield  is  not  due  to  intellectual 
doubts  which  they  cannot  remove,  but  be- 
cause of  an  unwillingness  they  will  not  mas- 
ter. If  this  is  true,  each  one  of  us  out  of 
Christ  is  under  a  stupendous  obligation. 

I   will    ask   you   to   answer   this   for   your- 
selves.    Can  you   give  a  truthful  reason  for 


not  opening  the  heart  to  Jesus,  Saviour  of 
men  ?  There  is  a  white-throated  song  spar- 
row, not  the  most  beautiful  singer  of  the 
sparrow  family,  but  still  ranking  high  as  a 
songster,  that  has  this  peculiarity,  —  he  sings 
by  day  or  by  night  ;  this  is  the  fellow  who 
pipes  so  bewitchingly  from  the  syringa  bushes 
near  your  bedroom  window  at  night.  He 
sings  because  song  is  in  his  heart,  and  so  I 
fancy  it  is  in  the  output  which  we  make.  It 
is  no  use  to  simulate  it ;  but  when  our  hearts 
are  full,  the  utterances  of  our  faith  and  trust 
are  as  sweet  to  the  ear  of  Christ  as  a  bird 
song  at  night.  If  we  can  but  open  heart  to 
Christ,  we  shall  have  full  heart  toward  Christ. 
With  an  open  heart  to-day  we  shall  have  full 
heart  to-morrow.  There  is  longing,  then  love  ; 
want,  then  fullness  ;  reception,  then  commun- 
ion ;  dearth,  then  joy  ;  fellowship,  then  affec- 
tion. I  do  not  know  how  to  appeal  to  you, 
but  then  it  is  not  I  but  Christ  that  pleads,  and 
I  will  let  Him  plead  for  that  new  life.  I  would 
plead  for  Him  if  it  would  do  any  good.  If 
I  repeat  His  words,  may  not  He  plead  in  the 
voice  that  articulates  His  words  .-*  May  I  not 
speak ;  *'  Behold  I  stand  at  the  door  and 
knock  '*  ?    Do  you  hear  Him  ? 


THE  MEAT   WHICH    IS  PERISHING. 

"  Work  not  for  the  food  which  is  perishing^  but 
for  the  meat  which  remaineth  unto  eternal 
life.^'' — John  6  :  2y. 

THE  day  preceding  our  text,  Christ  had 
wrought  the  miracle  of  Feeding  the  Five 
Thousand.  The  crowd  then  provided  for 
had  followed  Him  to  Capernaum,  His  home 
city,  in  expectation  of  still  further  miraculous 
provision  for  their  need.  Jesus  rebuked  them, 
answering  their  question,  ''When  did  you 
come  here.'"'  with  the  words,  "  Ye  seek  Me 
not  because  of  the  signs  of  My  Messiahship, 
but  because  ye  ate  of  the  loaves  and  were 
filled."  There  is  no  side  reference  to  the 
Last  Supper,  for  that  is  apart  from  the 
lessons  of  the  hour,  and  its  bread,  typical  of 
His  availing  death  for  believers,  was  not 
meant  for  the  multitude.  He  bluntly  told 
them  He  had  brought  no  conquest  of  bod- 
ily necessities,  so  that,  sustained  by  heavenly 
food,  they  might  hope  as  lazy  vagabonds 
to  be  sustained  in  His  train  as  He  went 
about  Palestine  on  His  journeys  as  a  vil- 
lage preacher.  They  desired  a  perishable 
(150) 


Cl?e  XiXcat  xo^xdi  is  Perishing,        151 

food  that  they  might  be  fed,  as  were  their 
fathers  of  old,  in  the  forty  years  of  wander- 
ing when  the  manna  was  shed  down  from 
heaven  ;  He  offers  them  a  food  which  should 
abide  eternally.  Like  everything  else,  this 
imperishable  bread  of  Christ  may  be  best 
defined  by  what  it  is  not. 

I.  That  thing  which  leads  us  to  turn  aside 
from  idleness  is  nourishment  to  the  inner 
life.  The  prostrate  aborigine  sleeping  in  the 
sun  in  the  afternoon  until  at  the  golden 
twilight  of  the  tropics  he  stretches  himself 
and  lounges  to  the  tree  where  without  effort 
he  gathers  banana  or  other  fruit  to  meet  his 
trifling  wants,  is  in  a  Utopia  of  the  Chauta- 
briand  or  St.  Pierre  type  ;  but  while  he  has 
the  earthly  bread  to  satisfy  the  alternative  of 
hunger,  he  lacks  altogether  that  heavenly 
bread  which  the  soul  craves.  The  same  is 
true  of  the  idler  in  civilization  ;  distraught 
by  a  well-deserved  poverty,  knowing  hunger, 
now  gorging  himself  with  both  food  and 
stimulants,  and  in  a  position  where,  notwith- 
standing his  temporal  necessities,  we  might 
suppose  that  a  person  so  constituted  could 
find  in  the  golden  web  of  his  fancy's  dream 
an  inner  life  compensatory  for  his  hampering 
environment,  we  as  matter  of  fact  find  him 


152         Hcu?  Concepts  of  £)Ib  £)ogmas. 


most  stolid  of  all  men,  and  lacking  those 
thoughts  transcendent  which  are  the  sure 
proof  of  a  heavenly  birthright. 

The  man  in  a  state  of  nature  hath  earthly 
food,  and  is  altogether  the  normal  man,  with 
his  earth  stains  upon  him  ;  but  he  is  the 
poorest  off  possible  to  conceive,  because  he 
hath  not  the  abnormal  gift  of  succor,  nourish- 
ment, and  upbuilding  which  God  alone  can 
give.  Taking,  then,  the  savage  of  heathen  or 
Christian  lands,  we  have  a  type  of  life  which 
we  do  not  value,  but  which  has  a  certain  full- 
ness of  the  unrestrained,  unhampered  sort  of 
existence,  and  which  wields  an  indissoluble 
charm  upon  that  savage,  whether  on  the 
plains  or  in  the  slums  of  our  great  cities,  so 
that  transformation  is  slow  and  doubtful, —  a 
charm  which  even  fascinates  some  white  men 
who  give  up  civilisation  and  live  with  red  men 
in  America,  or  with  black  men  in  Africa  as 
did  Emin  Pasha. 

Occupation,  therefore,  which  dissipates 
idleness  is  the  first  form  of  bread  from 
heaven  which  God  grants  to  men.  What  is 
it  that  makes  a  man  ?  Not  the  power  of 
assimilating  food,  not  the  capacity  to  walk 
erect,  but  instead  the  power  of  self-control, 
the  capacity  to  use  tools,  and  his  magnificent 


Cl?e  VTuat  wl}X(if  is  Pertsf^tng.        153 

endowments    of  thought.      When,   therefore, 
in    matter   of  idleness   he    approximates  the 
animals,  in  so  far  he  is  of  the  earth,  earthy. 
II.   Whenever  we  turn  aside  from  amuse- 
ment   for    the    sake    of  achieving  or  for  the 
nobler    things  of  life,  we    turn  from  earthly- 
food     to     heavenly    nourishment.       On    the 
question     of    amusements,    notwithstanding 
the   temper    of  this    time   in   which   we  live, 
weighted    with    schemes   for    amusement    so 
numerous    and    diversified   that    the  votaries 
of  pleasure   are  the    hardest-worked    people 
in    the    community,    I  dare    affirm    that    the 
Puritans    were    right   contra    mundtim.     The 
contention  is  not    that    there    should    be  no 
amusements,  but   rather  that   being  amused 
should  be  only  incidental  to  the  solid  busi- 
ness of  living.     The  amused  life  is  the  lost 
life  ;  it  is  eaten  up  as  regularly  as  men  eat 
rations.      I    would    rather    live    the    sober, 
somber   life   of  the   solemn-visaged   Puritan, 
barren  and  plain,  angular  and  unlovely,  with 
its    simple    faith    in    God,    but    ennobled    by 
something  earnest  to  do,  consecrating  many 
humble  homes,  as  it  did  fifty  years  ago,  than 
be  a  member  of  a  modern  fashionable,  frisky 
set,  with  its  whirl  of  giddiness,  its  pursuit  of 
new  sensations,  its  abject  adoration  of  sham 


154        Hetx)  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

wealth,  and  its  corruptions,  every  now  and 
then  exposed  to  the  world  by  some  fresh 
scandal,  for  its  meat  perisheth,  and  it  hath 
not  that  which  abideth. 

The  true  life  is  that  which  is  filled  full 
with  the  earnest  pursuit  of  its  calling,  with 
the  affections  of  the  family,  a  love  for  cult- 
ure and  aesthetics,  and  a  steadfastness  of 
deepest  loyalty  for  truth  and  honor.  You 
may  put  in  some  pleasures,  but  they  shall 
vanish  as  the  deeper  questions  and  the  full- 
est passions  of  the  life  are  evolved.  A  noble 
life  is  a  tidal  wave,  coming  in  to  shore 
freighted  from  God's  deep  which  is  full  from 
the  eternities  ;  the  winds  may  wrinkle  its 
surface  under  its  curling  lip  of  foam,  but  the 
flood  tide  of  its  passion  for  humanity  or  for 
God  shall  sweep  away  barriers,  flood  the 
creeks,  watering  the  grass  roots  on  the 
marshes,  fill  the  tide-dams,  closing  the  gates 
behind  it,  and  thus,  turning  a  hundred  wheels 
of  interest  and  use  to  others,  shall  pass  on 
to  the  dark  recesses  of  the  seas  beyond. 

III.  When  we  turn  from  mere  attention  to 
the  body,  its  food,  its  drink,  its  dress,  to  the 
deeper  concerns  of  eternity,  and  train  the 
imagination  to  religious  themes,  we  turn 
from  the  vexed  day-dream  of  a  heckled  soul 


tri?e  ViXtat  wl}xd}  is  Pertsl^ing.        155 

to  the  sureties  of  life  and  light  which  fill  the 
temples  beyond  the  skies.  These  nutritions 
that  avail  to-day  thou  mayst  provide  for,  but 
they  shall  fail  some  day ;  those  looks  of 
beauty  shall  fade  ;  the  most  beautiful  gar- 
ments shall  become  moth-eaten.  Thou  art 
maintaining  a  temple  of  folly  ;  thy  firm 
comfort  is  unprovided  for ;  thy  peace  is 
insecure.  Thy  alternations  of  hunger  and 
thirst  must  be  met,  but  they  are  only  the 
fuel  that  feeds  the  flame  of  life.  Is  life  to 
consist  merely  in  the  essentials  of  its  main- 
tenance ?  Is  a  person  to  say,  I  merely 
existed,  I  fed,  I  drank,  I  clothed }  Hear 
me  :  there  is  a  bread  of  God  which  Christ 
declared  hath  in  it  eternal  potencies. 

IV.  When  we  turn  our  lives  from  degrad- 
ing ends,  and  give  to  motives  of  goodness 
supremer  place  in  the  heart,  then  we  turn 
from  the  transitory  to  the  imperishable. 
These  degrading  ends,  too,  are  to  be  con- 
demned, not  so  much  in  quality  as  in  degree  ; 
they  are  the  absolute  absorption  of  the  indi- 
vidual in  money  getting,  or  in  chasing  the 
bubble  ambition,  or  absolute  devotion  to  toil. 
Money  is  a  most  tremendous  need,  and  can- 
not be  despised  without  loss  of  a  serious  sort 
to  the  individual  ;  but  money  shall  perish  like 


156        Hen?  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 


all  else  purely  earthly  ;  it  cannot  endure  the 
final  conflagration  of  things.  Indeed,  gold, 
so  valued,  is  more  perishable  than  iron, 
which  is  so  unvalued.  Gold,  worth  approxi- 
mately $250  per  pound  Troy,  the  symbol 
of  the  world's  wealth,  luxury,  and  pride,  will 
melt  at  one  fourth  the  temperature  of  iron, 
worth  one  cent  a  pound,  the  symbol  of  the 
world's  uses  and  necessities.  And  yet  what 
is  the  odds  ?  They  are  only  parts  of  that 
handiwork  of  God  we  call  the  universe,  the 
work  of  His  fingers,  which  His  hands  shall 
destroy.  That  money  getting  which  ends  in 
miserliness  is  surely  blind,  for  it  leaves  be- 
hind the  object  of  its  love,  and  cannot  reach 
to  the  stars  from  whence  cometh  its  help. 
Ambition  itself  is  an  over-reaching  of  self, 
for  the  object  of  self-love  is  in  the  interests  of 
the  individual ;  and  as  life  draws  to  a  close, 
the  soul  is  more  and  more  conscious  that 
having  done  all  it  can  for  itself  there  is  much 
which  it  cannot  do.  It  has  labored  and  suf- 
fered to  achieve,  but  a  limit  is  put  even  to 
its  own  achievement.  Some  deep  principles 
are  needed  for  anchorage  now,  when  the 
storms  are  bursting  upon  them.  What  I  am, 
is  lost  sight  of  in  view  of.  Whither  shall  I  be 
swept  ?     Whatever  I   am,    I   am  but  one  of 


C{?e  ITtcat  vol}xd^  is  Pertsl^ing.        157 

myriads  of  souls  dropping  out  of  sight  as 
multitudes  passing  a  crowded  thoroughfare 
over  a  broken  bridge  are  pushed  one  by  one 
into  the  cruel  waters  and  are  drowned  in  the 
tide. 

Men,  too,  may  follow  toil  to  their  disad- 
vantage, and  in  the  noble  self-restraints 
which  toil  imposes  may  find  a  fettering"  of 
their  nobler  self.  To  do  one  thing  for  ten 
hours,  such  as  making  screw  eyes  or  the  slat 
of  a  blind,  and  follow  it  twenty  years,  unless 
something  shall  come  in  to  arouse  the  inner 
man,  will  occasion  an  intellectual  torpor 
injurious  to  the  soul.  It  is  said  to  be  im- 
pressive for  an  American  to  go  into  the 
poorer  districts  in  London  and  meet  the 
people,  for  he  sees  before  him  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life  Anglo-Saxon  poverty,  all  the 
markings  on  face  and  form  showing  the 
familiar  features  of  many  a  prosperous  man 
whom  he  has  known  as  gifted  and  successful. 
Twenty  generations  of  toilers  burdened  by 
their  tasks  of  unrelieved  monotony,  under- 
taken in  ignorance  and  transmitted  through 
twenty  generations  of  toilers,  have  produced 
results  appalling  to  the  man  of  the  same 
blood,  who  has  been  redeemed  by  perilous 
enterprise   duly   undertaken,    making  a  new 


158        Hctt)  Concepts  of  £)16  Dogmas. 

man  by  creating  new  impulses,  new  activi- 
ties, and  a  diversified  experience,  succeeded, 
perchance,  by  a  life  which,  though  seemingly 
one  of  monotony  in  the  later  generation,  is 
after  all  redeemed  by  the  independence  and 
native  restlessness  of  the  man's  spirit.  Toil 
is  honorable,  and  the  man  who  labors  not  is 
to  be  despised,  but  itself,  carried  to  undue 
extreme,  may  be  a  positive  curse  to  the 
toiler. 

This  is  said  with  the  hope  of  breeding  dis- 
content in  thoughtful  minds,  in  order  that  we 
may  realize  the  poverty  of  this  life  in  and  of 
itself.  Life  in  this  present  environment  in 
its  own  concerns  and  in  its  own  aims,  is  not 
worthy  man's  attention.  We  have  criticised 
the  life  of  the  world  age,  not  cynically,  but 
because  we  have  something  better  than  this 
world  knoweth.  I  desire  to  make  plain  this 
higher  life,  whose  transcendence  Christ  de- 
clared when  He  said  it  was  the  bread  which 
remaineth  unto  the  eternities.  It  is  due  first 
to  the  teaching  we  draw  from  nature,  that 
personal  impression  which  a  being  obtains 
from  flower,  grass,  tree,  and  shrub,  from  stick 
and  stone,  water  and  air,  which  the  most 
barbarous  savage  as  well  as  the  most  pam- 
pered child  of  civilization  perceives  to  testify 


Cf?e  2Tteat  ml^tc^  is  pcrisf^ing.        159 

of  an  unknown  God.  This  first  impression  is 
re-inforced  by  the  impulse  which  every  heart 
feels  when  looking  abroad  on  nature  and  tak- 
ing in  vast  reaches  of  land  or  water  ;  the  land- 
scape itself  reacts  upon  the  human  heart, 
much  as  that  same  landscape  does  upon  the 
collodion  film  of  the  photographer,  and  the 
prepared  heart,  like  the  prepared  plate,  bears 
evermore  impress  of  what  the  Lord  has 
wrought.  Conviction  and  impulse  are  thus 
drawn  from  nature,  that  men  may  be  re- 
deemed from  the  accursed  dominion  of  that 
low  type  of  natural  life  which  is  simply  on  a 
level  with  that  of  the  brutes. 

But  do  not  be  deceived  :  these  impressions 
from  nature  are  not  communicated  by  nat- 
ure. Two  pebbles  are  lying  together  on  the 
shore  ;  has  one  an  impression  on  the  other  ? 
are  they  acquainted  ?  and  do  they  talk  ?  Are 
two  trees  gifted  with  self-consciousness,  or 
two  pieces  of  joist,  or  two  lakes,  or  two 
mountains.''  This  much  is  certain,  he  who 
interprets  the  language  of  the  babbling 
brook  and  the  response  of  the  sobbing  wave 
on  the  shore,  has  a  mightier  task  than  that 
professor  who  is  in  Central  Africa  learning 
the  language  of  the  chimpanzees.  And  even 
if  the  wind  blowing  among   the  tree-tops  is 


160        Hem  (LonccTpts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

language  as  well  as  the  voice  of  the  waters, 
a  strange  paralysis  accompanies  all  other 
acts  of  volition.  If  the  rocks  can  speak  to 
each  other,  they  cannot  speak  without  the 
intervention  of  some  other  forces  than  they 
possess  in  common  ;  also  to  me  as  possessing 
a  material  body  the  material  thing  can  have 
no  witness.  Now  we  maintain  this,  that  the 
deriving  of  intellectual  impressions,  without 
which  there  is  no  possible  conception  of 
the  spiritual  life,  can  be  explained  only  on 
the  inference  that  the  material  nature  of  the 
one  has  impact  on  the  spiritual  nature  of  the 
other  through  act  of  God. 

These  impressions  of  the  senses  thus  im- 
pacted upon  the  spiritual  nature  of  man,  in 
the  heart  of  a  child,  filling  the  soul  with  the 
tremulousness  which  accompanies  those  first 
testimonies  of  nature  to  the  senses,  are  the 
ringing  of  the  joy  bells  of  the  heart  over  the 
discovery  of  the  new  continent  of  man-soul ; 
all  of  which  has  been  accomplished  by  the 
direct  intervention  of  God.  What  wonder 
that  as  the  man  grows  older,  when  he  re- 
ceives still  stronger  impressions  from  the 
landscape,  so  conscious  is  he  of  the  divine 
beauty  of  the  earth  that  he  exclaims.  Lord, 
"  Thou  art  here,"  and  nothing  can  suit  the  full- 


^l^e  IHeat  wl}X(i}  is  Perisl^tng.        161 

ness  of  the  heart  save  the  Te  Deiun  Laudamus , 
The  second  gift  of  the  eternal  bread  is  in 
the  power  of  abstraction  and  thought,  by 
which  we  forget  that  we  are  animal,  and  be- 
come the  creatures  under  the  stars  and  part 
of  the  immensities  of  God.  All  scientific 
knowledge,  all  conception  of  truth,  all  ar- 
tistic creations  of  brush  or  pen  or  voice,  are 
through  God  The  tympanum  of  the  tele- 
phone at  the  ear  of  the  receiver  is  perfect, 
but  to  transmit  its  message  there  must  be  a 
similar  tympanum  to  respond  to  the  human 
voice  at  the  other  end  of  the  wire.  Granted 
a  perfect  receiver,  it  is  still  a  useless  instru- 
ment without  a  transmitter.  The  air  may  be 
full  of  sounds  out  there,  but  you  are  passive, 
being  unmoved  by  its  rapture.  So  the  ma- 
terial world  hath  no  corresponding  instru- 
ment to  the  human  heart ;  and  that  soul  must 
be  unmoved  by  long-distance  messages,  until 
at  the  other  end  of  sense  perception  a  trans- 
mitter of  similar  characteristics  shall  speak 
into  the  soul  the  gracious  messages  of  the 
divine  impressions.  Why  is  it  that  a  song 
gives  inspiration,  except  it  be  that  the  wave 
motions  started  by  the  volition  of  the  singer 
reproduce    upon    us    those    impressions   with 

which  it  was  freighted  ?     How  then  can  inani- 
II 


"162        Hert)  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

mate  nature  answer  back  from  its  dead  clods 
and  give  me  the  impressions  of  a  living  be- 
ing? We  answer,  It  cannot,  except  God 
interposes,  who  is  the  Author,  though  the 
Holy  Ghost,  of  this  eternal  bread  of  life 
differentiating  the  genus  homo  from  all  the 
creation.  This  is  the  second  step  in  the 
redemption  of  man  from  subservience  to 
the  flesh. 

Of  this  bread  of  heaven  Christ  was  the 
consummator.  That  primeval  revelation  to 
man  of  God  in  nature,  and  God  behind  nat- 
ure, He  quadrupled  a  hundred  times  over. 
Monotheism  outside  of  Judea  was  a  starving 
remnant,  having  lost  its  own  ideals  with 
which  it  started,  and  not  able  intelligently 
to  make  affidavit  as  to  its  own  birthright. 
Henceforth  all  is  secure  ;  Christian  men  can 
to-day  as  well  >deny  their  self-consciousness 
as  their  God-consciousness  ;  we  are  as  sure 
that  He  lives  as  that  we  live. 

How  much  the  incarnation  of  the  divine 
wisdom  in  the  person  of  the  Nazarene  has 
deepened  human  knowledge,  let  the  intelli- 
gence of  Christendom  as  opposed  to  the 
ignorance  and  superstition  of  heathenism 
give  good  and  sufficient  answer.  It  may 
be   truly  affirmed    that    notwithstanding  the 


C!?e  Itteat  voli'id}  is  Pertsf)tng.        163 

genius  of  Greek  and  Roman  times,  all  knowl- 
edge, philosophy,  and  government  in  any 
Christian  epoch  doth  vastly  outweigh  it. 
This  much  is  certain,  for  twenty  centuries 
the  dialectics  of  this  world  have  not  been 
able  to  overcome  the  foolishness  of  preach- 
ing, and  I  doubt  if  it  ever  will.  The  seeth- 
ing life  of  the  ancient  Roman  world  could 
not  forget  Him ;  the  Roman  power  could 
put  Him  to  death,  but  could  not  end  His 
influence.  He  lives  through  the  ages  in  spite 
of  the  generations  of  men.  He  brought  food 
that  should  remain.  But  in  no  sphere  did 
He  complement  all  that  men  knew  so  much 
as  in  the  moral  and  spiritual  life.  Duty 
henceforth  became  plain  to  men.  Self-denial 
was  established  as  a  component  part  in  all 
goodness.  Love  became  the  leverage  for 
moving  men  to  righteousness.  The  incarna- 
tion was  the  re-beginning  of  a  holiness  which 
had  fled  a  sin-cursed  earth.  To  the  perfect- 
ness  of  our  ideal  we  unceasingly  turn,  and  in 
His  life  find  light,  for  the  life  was  the  light 
of  men. 


THE  PATIENT  DOTH  MINISTER  TO 
HIMSELF. 

•*  For  God  sent  not  the  Son  into  the  world  to 
condemn  the  world;  but  that  the  world 
should    be    saved    through   Him.'''' — John 

3  ■'  n- 

THERE  is  something  in  us  that  will  not 
down,  our  acts  being  under  the  control 
of  the  will,  and  each  able  to  do  the  most 
red-handed  crime  ;  yet  God  has  placed  his 
daggers  in  the  soul,  as  though  some  avenger 
were  present  with  our  secret  self  to  bring  a 
fiery  and  terrible  vengeance  upon  the  trans- 
gressor. Wordsworth,  in  one  of  his  early 
poems,  cites  such  a  character  :  — 

••He  met  a  traveler,  robbed  him,  shed  his  blood; 
And  when  the  miserable  work  was  done, 
He  fled,  a  vagrant   since,   the  murderer's  fate  to 
shun. 

"  From  that  day  forth  no  place  to  him  could  be 
So  lonely,  but  that  thence  might  come  a  pang, 
Brought  from  without  to  inward  misery." 

Scientific  descriptions  of  conscience  fill  the 
books,  most  of  them  in  a  high  degree  unsatis- 
(164) 


CI?e  Patient  boil}  ^TTtnistcr  to  ^tmself.    165 

factory  ;  but  we  do  not  need  definitions  ;  we  all 
know  the  power  of  conscience  as  a  disturb- 
ing element  in  unrighteous  calculations,  in 
thwarting  us  of  the  fruits  of  illegitimate  vic- 
tory by  having  the  apples  of  gold  turn  to 
ashes  within  our  grasp.  Criminals  long  es- 
caped from  justice  give  themselves  up  after 
years  of  successful  hiding.  Like  Lady  Mac- 
beth, it  preys  upon  their  minds  as  they 
sleep  ;  the  stained  hand  is  ever  before  their 
eyes,  and  "  all  the  perfumes  of  Arabia  will 
not  sweeten  it."  "What,  will  these  hands 
ne'er  be  clean  ?  " 

The  heart  of  a  child  beats  140  times  per 
minute,  at  the  close  of  a  year  its  stroke  is 
120,  past  middle  life  it  is  sixty  or  seventy 
beats.  Napoleon  and  his  conqueror,  the 
Duke  of  Wellington,  had  only  forty  heart- 
beats a  minute.  May  that  not  signify  how 
those  men  could  take  enormous  risks  and 
carry  them  to  the  end  ?  how  the  one.  Na- 
poleon, could  face  the  allied  armies  of  Eu- 
rope, after  his  exile  to  Elba,  and  make  one 
more  appeal  to  destiny  on  the  field  of 
Waterloo.-*  and  Wellington  for  nine  mortal 
hours  hold  his  line  of  battle  firm  until  his 
military  instinct  divined^  unerringly  that  the 
time  for  a  general  onset  of  the  whole  front 


166         Xitxo  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

had  come  ?  For  what  is  it  that  unnerves 
men  but  a  heart  pumping  with  violence, 
whitening  the  cheek  and  deranging  the 
powers    of  the    will  ? 

Men  wear  out  nowadays  from  nervous  pros- 
tration, but  that  is  generally  due  to  heart 
failure,  because  of  the  reflex  action  of  mental 
strain  upon  the  source  of  life.  Worry,  trouble, 
and  the  nervous  push  of  things  necessary  for 
successful  life,  the  excitements  of  our  poli- 
tics, the  curse  of  the  daily  newspaper,  with 
its  appeals  to  our  sympathies  and  hates,  wear- 
ing us  out  with  other  people's  concerns,  the 
multitudinous  amount  of  brain-work  which  a 
man  can  do  through  the  telegraph  and  rapid 
means  of  transit,  the  enormous  pressure  of 
modern  competition,  making  the  waves  of 
the  commercial  ocean  with  its  tides  of  busi- 
ness, seem  like  the  heaving  waves  of  the 
ocean  in  storm, —  all  rest  upon  the  physical 
constitution,  and  strike  deepest  at  the  heart. 
It  flutters  like  a  wounded  bird's  wing  beating 
the  unwilling  air,  or  like  a  canary  when  you 
have  your  hand  upon  the  cage,  at  some  sud- 
den fear.  A  thousand  hearts  with  sympathy 
are  throbbing  when  some  life-saving  act  is 
performed  under  our  eyes,  perhaps  a  strong 
man  swoons  when    the   deed   is  done.     And 


tTE^e  patient  boil}  minister  to  fjimself.    167 

thus  the  mind  acts  on  the  physical  constitu- 
tion ;  the  capacity  for  thought  is  in  involun- 
tary connection  with  the  engine  which  drives 
the  wheels  of  our  life  ;  he  therefore  that  is  a 
fugitive  from  the  divine  justice,  lives  faster, 
wears  out  sooner,  and  the  joylessness  of  the 
life  is  heightened,  by  the  drag  of  a  decreased 
physical  energy.  This  gives  significance  to 
the  cry  of  the  Psalmist,  '*  My  heart  and  my 
flesh  rejoice  in  the  living  God,"  for  David  had 
committed  criminal  sin,  and  knew  the  depres- 
sion of  sin  upon  the  body  ;  not  only  was  his 
soul  freed  from  burden,  but  the  vital  energy 
which  we  identify  with  the  heart,  the  seat  of 
the  principle  of  life,  was  freed  and  blest  in 
the  great  congregation.  Thus  doth  God 
daily  witness  in  the  human  being,  giving  the 
lie  to  the  shameless  asseveration  of  the  street, 
namely,  that  the  human  body  knows  no  con- 
science. 

What  mean  the  nervous  twitches  of  the 
criminal  under  the  surveillance  of  the  eye  of 
suspicion  ?  What  means  the  dethronement  of 
reason  under  the  pressure  of  a  great  crime, 
or  when  man  is  ready  to  give  up  his  life  of 
the  body,  because  it  is  as  naught  compared 
with  the  shame  of  existence?  I  knew  a  boy 
once  that  took  his  life  under  just  such    cir- 


168         Xlcw  Concepts  of  £)16  Dogmas. 

cumstances.  A  judge  has  been  known  to 
leave  the  bench  and  place  himself  at  the  side 
of  a  prisoner  at  the  bar  convicted  of  murder, 
and  confess  to  a  similar  crime  thirty  years 
before,  so  much  heavier  seemed  the  burden 
of  a  wicked  conscience  than  the  loss  of  phys- 
ical life,  the  enjoyment  of  which  is  the  highest 
boon  the  body  can  confer  upon  the  spirit. 

Says  Macbeth. — 

*'How    does  your  patient,  doctor  ?  " 

Doctor. — 

"Not  so  sick,  my  lord, 
As  she  is  troubled  with  thick-coming  fancies. 
That  keep  her  from  her  rest." 

Macbeth. — 

"  Cure  her  of  that. 
Canst  thou  not  minister  to  a  mind  diseased. 
Pluck  from  the  memory  a  rooted  sorrow. 
Raze  out  the  written  troubles  of  the  brain, 
And  with  sortie  sweet  oblivious  antidote 
Cleanse  the  stuffed  bosom   of   that   perilous 

stuff 
Which  weighs  upon  the  heart?" 

Doctor. — 

"Therein  the  patient  must  minister   to   him- 
self." 

We  can  say  aye  to  that ;  men    know   the 
power  of  conscience,  but  every  man  has  his 


Cf?e  patient  botE?  minister  to  £?imself.    169 

own  medicine.  Often  circumstances  do  alter 
cases,  and  he  imagines  great  peril  or  fears 
great  turgid  imaginations  which  never  could 
amount  to  much.  I  will  only  enumerate  a 
few  general  instances. 

A  very  common  excuse  which  is  used  as  a 
sedative  in  our  daily  life  for  a  troubled  con- 
science is  the  plea :  Somebody  will  sell 
liquor  if  I  do  not  ;  somebody  will  cheat  the 
government  if  I  do  not ;  somebody  will  op- 
press the  poor  if  I  do  not.  Another  very 
common  one  is  this  :  Everybody  lies,  every- 
body steals,  everybody  compromises  with 
duty,  everybody  is  a  hyprocrite,  particularly 
the  minister  and  church-members  ;  therefore 
I  am  just  like  the  rest.  It  is  strange  each 
person  does  not  see  that  to  his  own  Master 
he  standeth  or  falleth,  and  that  no  excuse  for 
wrong-doing  can  be  found  in  the  misdeeds  of 
other  people.  But  this  is  the  medicine  which 
many  a  patient  ministers  to  himself. 

Now  we  have  cited  two  classes  of  experi- 
ence, the  worst  of  men  and  the  best  of  men. 
But  we  have  not  placed  the  worst  of  men  on 
a  par  with  the  best.  While  the  worst  suffer 
more  or  less  the  pangs  of  conscience,  and 
particular  men  suffer  extremely,  we  think 
it  is  true    that    the  best  people  suffer  more 


170         Tuw  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

for  small  transgressions.  We  have  striven  to 
show  a  well-nigh  universal  characteristic  of 
human  experience,  but  the  fact  remains  that 
those  who  live  most  uprightly  suffer  rela- 
tively most  keenly  for  their  derelictions.  A 
person  believing  profanity  wrong  is  shocked 
beyond  measure  if  by  any  sudden  thought- 
lessness he  utters  an  oath.  A  person  who 
scorns  a  liar  is  very  much  ashamed  of  a  de- 
ceit,or  even  of  whatmust  appear  a  deceit  in  the 
eyes  of  his  neighbor.  This  is  not  strange, 
the  competent  workman  is  he  who  feels  most 
the  ill-made  joint,  or  the  ugly  gouge  made  by 
his  chisel.  The  dabster  thinks  it  can  be  made 
right  by  putty  and  paint.  They  who  take 
pains  in  morals  and  religion  know  best  the 
blemishes  of  an  upright  character,  they  trace 
disproportionately  their  moral  oversights  and 
their  unintentional  sins  ;  but  I  am  direct- 
ing to  the  thought  that  the  best  and  the 
worst  have  consciousness  of  dereliction,  and 
that  God  has  set  up  a  chamber  in  the  soul 
like  that  sealer's  apartments  at  Washington, 
full  of  accurate  standards  of  moral  measures, 
so  that  when  we  reel  off  yard  after  yard  ac- 
cording to  our  measure,  we  are  somehow  con- 
scious that  we  have  not  given  God's  measure, 
and  having  the  facilities  at  hand,  may  set  our 
measure  right  if  we  will.     This  gives  the  de- 


Cl?e  patient  boil}  TTi'xmskv  to  ^imself.    171 

gree  of  human  responsibility.  We  can  do 
better  if  we  will,  be  juster,  be  truer,  be  more 
devout.  For  therein  the  patient  doth  minis- 
ter to  himself 

The  Indian  mother  of  old  threw  her  child 
into  the  Ganges  to  expiate  the  sin  of  her 
soul,  "for  therein  the  patient  must  minister 
to  himself"  Read  the  article  in  the  March 
number  of  the  Centtiry  (1890)  on  the  "Sun 
Dance  of  the  Sioux  Indians,"  and  note  how  on 
the  fourth  day  the  young  warriors  presented 
their  bared  breasts  to  the  knife  of  the  medi- 
cine man,  that  on  each  side,  near  the  shoul- 
der, the  skin  might  be  stripped  up,  and  a 
bone  skewer  firmly  attached  to  a  thong  sus- 
pended from  the  pole  in  the  center,  be  sewn 
in  on  either  side,  that  dashing  themselves 
backward  two  or  three  hours,  or  perchance 
until  the  skewer  had  torn  out,  they  might 
win  the  favor  of  the  sun  god  ;  the  writer 
does  not  say  expiation,  but  I  am  confident 
that  their  self-torture  means  more  than 
adoration  of  the  omnipotent  power  of  the 
sun  ;  it  is  simply  their  way  of  atonement ; 
for  therein  the  patient  doth  minister  to 
himself 

But,  says  some  one,  how  about  your  Chris- 
tianity }  does  it  not,  heathen  fashion,  provide 
some  method  of  redemption  adapted  to  the 


172         Hctp  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

vagaries  of  the  dififerent  sets  of  people  whom 
it  incloses  ?  I  answer,  Yes.  Boyesen  says  of 
Ibsen  :  "Christianity  has,  in  his  opinion,  been 
vulgarized  by  its  adaptation  to  average,  com- 
mon-place men,  and  its  demand  of  absolute 
purity,  uprightness,  and  saintliness  has  been 
compromised  at  thirty  or  fifty  per  cent,  ac- 
cording to  the  ability  of  imperfect  human 
nature  ;"  which  is  altogether  true  ;  for  therein 
the  patient  hath  ministered  to  himself.  We 
need  less  of  feeling  and  more  of  Christ. 

Having  consciousness,  as  all  do  have  in 
some  measure,  of  condemnation  before  the 
bar  of  our  own  hearts,  the  question  arises  as 
to  what  medicine  shall  be  given  ;  "for  therein 
the  patient  must  minister  to  himself."  We 
may  do  as  many  are  doing  about  us, —  satisfy 
the  conscience  by  specious  excuses,  blunt  it 
by  neglect  and  carelessness,  stupify  it  by 
intoxicants  or  narcotics,  each  man  going  by 
himself,  even  as  the  heathen  have  and  the 
heathen  do.  Is  it  not  best  to  find  another 
will  standing  above  nature  ?  To  find  a  law 
for  the  will ;  which  shall  lead  men  to  a  medi- 
cine which  they  cannot  apply  each  for  him- 
self, nor  one  for  the  other  ;  which  shall  be 
revealed  by  personality  adequate  and  holy  ; 
and  which  shall  gather  all  unto  Himself,  not 


CI?e  patient  boil}  IHtntster  to  ^tmself.    173 

through  any  base  motive  of  purchase,  but 
through  mercy  and  favor,  so  that  our  redemp- 
tion is  all  of  good  will,  and  our  moral  healing 
the  adequate  cause  of  our  salvation  ?  "  For 
God  sent  not  the  Son  into  the  world  to  con- 
demn the  world,  but  that  the  world  should 
be  saved  through  Him." 


LONESOMENESS  FOR  GOD. 

"  Having   no    hope,    and   zvithout    God  in    the 
world.'''' — Eph.  2: 12. 

MAN  is  a  gregarious  animal.  The  wild 
horses  of  the  plains  are  no  surer  to  roam 
in  herds  than  he  to  seek  converse  with  his 
kind.  When  apart  from  men,  he  longs  for 
their  company,  their  friendship,  their  amity. 
When  for  crimes  they  hunt  him  into  desert 
places,  and  he  fears  for  his  life,  danger  can- 
not prevent  him  from  seeking  the  haunts  of 
men  ;  he  bares  his  breast  to  the  bullets 
of  the  sheriff's  posse,  or  to  the  knife-thrust 
of  his  enemy  coming  unawares,  rather  than 
endure  the  low  spirits  fostered  by  a  life  of 
exile  in  the  solitudes ;  and  the  oppressive 
nature  of  his  loneliness  drives  him  to  saloon 
counters  in  the  nearest  scantling  city.  That 
depression  of  spirits  known  as  homesickness 
is  really  lonesome  sickness.  There  is  nobody 
about  us  whom  we  know  in  such  a  case  ; 
humanity  in  each  personality  seems  like  a 
huge  dry-goods  box  ;  we  know  nothing  of 
the  silks  and  satins  inside.  It  is  a  mere 
(174) 


Conesomeness  for  ®ob.  175 


casing   of  soft-fibered,  rough    material ;    the 
soul    grows    lonesome    in    its    environment. 
There  are  about  plenty  of  men,  but  not  men 
as   we    have    known    them    heretofore.     The 
doors  of  our  hearts  have  been  open  to  our 
friends  ;  they  have  been  to  us  a  delight,  but 
behold,  the  delight  is  gone  ;  they  may  not  be 
fifty  miles    from   us,   but    inexperienced  and 
accustomed  to  the  sunshine  of  human  favor 
in   the    circle    in    which    we    move,    we    are 
clouded,  perplexed,  saddened,   disheartened. 
Men  are  not   merely  discomforted  by  this 
lonesome  sickness  through  days  of  weeping 
and    mock    despair, —  mock   despair,  I  say, — 
because  of  the  teasing  of  their  fellows,  which 
nettles    them  and  makes  very  real    the    fact 
of  which  they  have  been  cognizant  all    the 
way  through,  namely,  that    there  was   noth- 
ing  to   despair   about,  —  but    it    happens    in 
rare    instances    that  men    die   of  this   same 
homesickness,    the  body  being  in  such  sym- 
pathy  with    the    heart    in    its    unfathomable 
longings  after  the  touch  of  life  in  its  essence, 
impacting  its   own    life    in   the    very  seat  of 
being,  that  is,  the  soul.     My  horse   pounds 
heavily  all  night  long  in  his  stall  for  months, 
in  his    frantic    longing  for   his  harness-mate 
with  whom  he  has  been  in  one  stable  or  an- 


176         Heu)  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

other,  in  Canada  or  New  Hampshire,  from 
colt-hood  ;  my  dog  mourns  the  absence  of 
his  master ;  my  heart  pounds  away  with 
seemingly  trip-hammer  heaviness,  when  as  a 
boy  in  my  teens  just  away  from  home,  new 
school  faces  cannot  replace  or  solace  me  for 
the  every-day  faces  of  home  and  village. 
Every  created  thing  with  affections  empha- 
sizes the  difference  between  mere  automatic 
life,  as  in  the  tree  trunk,  and  the  sentient  life 
of  a  creature  that  can  love  the  presence  and 
being  of  another  creature  like  itself  I  might 
have  been  made  unconscious  of  my  neighbor, 
even  as  one  stone  is  indifferent  to  every 
other,  one  grain  of  sea-shore  sand  to  every 
other,  which,  heaped  about  it,  covers  it  from 
the  light  of  day,  and  have  cared  no  more  for 
sunshine  than  for  darkness,  but  I  was  not  so 
made  ;  down  among  other  motives  I  recognize 
this  one,  which  never  argues  out  the  logic  of 
its  position  or  the  logic  of  events,  but  pulls 
away  at  heart  leading-strings,  demonstrating 
its  presence  by  the  reach  of  its  cordlets  deep 
into  the  heart  of  a  man. 

A  hermit  sometimes  builds  his  shanty  in  a 
neglected,  barren  place  ;  his  unkempt  person 
and  his  life  apart  are  both  good  witnesses 
that  he  is  not  quite  himself     Such  men  are 


Conesomencss  for  ®o5,  177 


unbalanced  by  the  desire  of  human  love  un- 
attained  ;  one  person  denies  them,  they  can- 
not transfer  their  regard  to  another  ;  denied 
the  highest  human  relationship  with  natures 
too  inflexibly  true  to  turn  about,  they  deny 
all   human    society  because  the  highest  and 
purest  and  best  relation  to  their  kind  is  not 
theirs.      The  lonesomeness  of  the  heart  over- 
spreads the  intellect ;  the  feelings  dominate 
the  will,  or  rather  swamp   the   personality, 
warping  it ;    the  sentiments  bleed  to   death 
through  the  one  wound  ;    one  grievous  hurt 
of  lonesome's  poisoned   arrow  has  spread  a 
benumbing    influence    over    those    spiritual 
qualities  of  the  inner  man,  so  that  he  lives 
no   more    in    his    social    instincts,    but   only 
keeps  open  such  chambers  of  the  soul  as  may 
be    used    with    darkened    windows,    shutting 
the  outlook  and  the  sunshine  derived   from 
personal  contact  with  our  kind.     I  fancy  that 
in    these   cases    the    imagination    is    unduly 
aroused,  and  that  the  attention  is  fixed  upon 
the  ideal  of  that  never-dying  love  ;  that  such 
lives  are  transported  by  visions  of  the  pres- 
ence of  their  beloved,  and   that,  wrapped  in 
the  contemplation  of  their  ideal  made  real, 
they  crowd  out  actual  association  with  man- 
kind.    Just    as    Dickens,    on    occasion,    used 


12 


178         Tlcw  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

to  live  with  the  creatures  of  his  pen,  spend- 
ing his  daytime  with  them  present  in  the 
room,  revealed  to  his  consciousness,  and 
dreaming  of  them  at  night,  may  be.  Just  as 
Dante  through  long  years  treasured  the 
thought  of  Beatrice,  who  never  could  be  his 
in  this  life,  as  she  was  pledged  to  another, 
and  separated  from  him  by  the  great  gulf  of 
high  social  rank  ;  but  whom  in  purest  way 
he  loved,  fostering  thought  of  her,  of  whom 
he  wrote  after  her  decease,  and  meeting 
whom  in  Paradise  was  his  chiefest  antici- 
pation. 

It  seems  plain  to  the  preacher  that  these 
hermit  souls  must  be  explained  as  illustrat- 
ing the  power  of  lonesomeness  to  dislocate  the 
proper  excitements  of  the  mind  and  to  en- 
kindle the  imagination  to  an  improper  func- 
tion among  the  powers  of  the  intellect.  It 
illustrates  the  craving  of  the  soul  for  compan- 
ionship in  the  highest  degree  ;  for  while  it 
may  have  relations  with  humanity  in  the 
bulk,  and  may  delight  in  them,  such  for  in- 
stance as  a  man  feels  in  a  great  congregation, 
or  mass-meeting,  or  mob,  yet  the  sense  of 
companionship  deals  first  hand  with  specific 
instances.  We  want  to  meet  A,  B,  and  C, 
and  out  of  these   various  meetings   and  the 


Concsomeness  for  ®ob.  179 

pleasures  thereof  comes  the  aggregate  im- 
pression which  we  call  pleasure  of  society. 
Accentuate  any  one  acquaintance,  and  it  be- 
comes friendship  ;  accentuate  this,  and  you 
find  only  one  friendship  in  reality  or  treas- 
ured in  the  imagination  can  help  from  lone- 
someness  and  gloom. 

Until  recently  the  opinion  has  prevailed 
that  under  stimulants  men  open  their  hearts 
to  the  endearing  fondness  of  friendship,  and 
that  to  find  the  typical  hail-fellow  well  met 
you  must  obtain  a  man  with  drink  in  him. 
This  seems  to  be  exploded  ;  the  quickened 
pulses  and  swifter  heart-beat  are  due  to 
the  circumstances,  and  occasion  under  which 
the  drink  is  obtained,  and  not  to  the  alcohol 
itself  If  you  take  the  drinker  apart,  and 
give  him  all  he  desires,  no  such  symptoms 
of  careless  hilarity  appear.  We  must  con- 
clude, therefore,  that  the  social  instinct  is 
stronger  than,  the  stimulant,  and  that  the 
devotee  who  follows  his  cups  has  mistakenly 
judged  of  himself,  and  doth  not  know  that 
God  hath  put  within  him  living  fountains 
of  water  that  shall  slake  the  thirst  of  friend- 
ship in  a  score  of  souls,  and  that  it  welleth 
up  within  him,  continually  satisfying  him- 
self as    well    as    others.     These    are    primal 


180         Hctp  Concepts  of  £){b  Dogmas, 

elements  of  being  in  him  who  is  made  in  the 
image  and  likeness  of  God.  And  if  the 
created  thing  hath  bonds  demanding  satisfac- 
tion, He  in  whose  likeness  it  is  made  hath 
similar  bonds,  and  the  inclination,  need,  and 
desire  of  the  one  will  find  satisfaction  in  the 
personality  of  the  other. 

We  are  brought  face  to  face  with  the  fact 
that  man's  longing  for  companionship  is  not 
absolutely  satisfied  with  the  best  which  hu- 
man love  and  comradeship  can  give  us, 
but  that,  having  all  that  earth  can  give,  we 
long  for  all  that  heaven  can  add  of  friend- 
ship's joy  and  comfort.  It  is  not  an  idle 
thing  to  say  that  God's  friendship  is  worth 
having.  Knowest  thou  a  man  who  has  lived 
so  impiously  and  wickedly  that  he  has  come 
to  feel  that  God's  favor  cannot  be  won  by 
his  penitence,- that  the  heavens  are  brass 
above  him,  and  God's  hand  clenched  against 
him  ?  Then  of  a  surety  he  is  one  from  whom 
the  friendliness  of  earth  is  stricken,  on  the 
withdrawal  of  the  friendship  of  Heaven.  If 
eternal  goodness  is  against  me,  friendship 
is  eternally  dead  to  me,  on  earth  and  forever. 

Take  up  again,  if  you  please,  the  case  of 
that  outlaw  whose  hands  are  red  with  human 
blood,  shed  with  malice  of  forethought.      Into 


Conesomeness  for  6ob-  181 


the   solitudes    of  the    prairies    he    urges    his 
foaming    steed,    conscious    of  God's    enmity 
and  man's  vengeance.     He   stops  and   looks 
behind  him  as  he  reaches  the  crest  bordering 
the  bottom-lands  in  the  broad  basin  drained 
by  a  western  river,  and  sees,  as  he  carelessly 
swings   half  round   in  the  saddle,  the  sheriff 
and    his    men    behind.     He    ambushes    him- 
self,   commanding  the    path  leading    up   the 
steep,  perhaps  behind  his  kneeling  horse,  or 
behind  convenient  bowlders  swung  and  set- 
tled   there    by    mighty    waters    before    men 
were  on  the  face  of  the   earth.      He   shakes 
the    cartridges    of    his    repeating   rifle    into 
place.      Malignity  hath   taken    possession   of 
him,     defiance    rules     his     brooding    heart ; 
but  they  lose  the  trail  at  the  water,  and  he 
journeys  toward  the  Bad  Lands,  hoping  in  the 
desert  to  find  rest  for  a  nettled  spirit.     They 
follow  him  to  his  retreat  in  the  valley  ;  with 
keen  eye  he  learns  their  number,  too  many 
are  they  for  one   sure    rifle  ;    he    becomes   a 
fugitive.     Continuous    watching   without   re- 
laxation wears  upon  his  strength.     At  length 
in   the    moonlight,   wrapped    in    his    blanket, 
listening  to  the  monotonous  champ,  champ, 
champ,    of    his    tethered    horse    as    he    feeds 
near,  resting  his  head  on  his  rifle,  he  goes  to 


182         Hetp  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

sleep,  to  awake  as  strong  men  hold  him  pin- 
ioned, while  the  cold  handcuffs  are  snapped 
upon  his  wrists.  It  is  a  fact  that  man  is 
against  him  ;  that  sheriff  is  humanity's  cham- 
pion ;  those  handcuffs  are  humanity's  fetters  ; 
these  are  man's  agencies  :  but  that  smiting 
sense  of  Infinite  Justice,  repellant  and  hos- 
tile because  outraged  and  despised,  whence 
comes  that,  more  terrible  than  armed  men 
when  once  the  human  mind  has  been  roused 
to  observe  how  threatening  is  God's  attitude 
to  the  transgressor  ?  And  when  he  comes  to 
trial,  this  red-handed  assassin  will  fear  not 
so  much  the  punishments  of  earthly  law,  with 
its  death  sentence  and  the  drop,  as  he  will 
the  withdrawal  of  God's  face  from  a  soul 
which  clings  to  Him  as  naturally  as  a  child 
to  his  father's  hand,  and  the  being  is  shut  up 
to  himself  and  his  own  resources,  to  himself 
and  his  own  solitudes,  while  God  is  with- 
drawn afar.  This  world  is  full  of  meaning  to 
the  man  of  God  ;  this  life  is  full  of  despair 
to  the  man  in  the  world  without  God. 

Our  text  refers  to  the  condition  of  the  Gen- 
tile races  before  the  preaching  of  the  cross, 
consequent  upon  the  rejection  of  the  Mes- 
siah by  His  own  people.  The  Gentile  na- 
tions were  plunged  into  sin  and  into  the  de- 


Conesomeness  for  ^ob.  183 

spair  consequent  upon  transgression  of  God's 
holy  law  ;  the  never-sleeping  sentinel  of  con- 
science sounded  his  alarms ;  even  in  their 
dreams  men  saw  terrors  because  conscious 
that  transgression  leads  to  penalty  and  that 
the  divine  Power  without  us  and  within  us, 
however  defined,  could  not  make  His  abiding- 
place  with  such  souls.  Men  hungered  and 
thirsted  after  God,  hungered  for  His  love, 
hungered  for  His  friendliness,  hungered  for 
His  companionship. 

The  whole  trend  of  this  sermon  has  been 
to  show  that  we  need  companionships  and 
association,  that  we  need  it  manward  and 
Godward.  Man  of  this  world,  satisfied  with 
thine  earthly  friendships,  what  is  that  longing 
within  thee,  unquenched  and  unquenchable, 
except  the  cravings  of  a  soul  adapted  to  com- 
munion with  the  Most  High,  desiring  that 
companionship  fulfilled  ?  Believe  me,  that 
longing  which  cannot  be  satisfied  is  simply 
lonesomeness  for  God.  Heap  up  thy  wealth, 
magnify  thy  learning  by  long  years  of  study, 
gratify  thine  ambition,  lengthen  out  the  list 
of  thy  friends  to  regimental  proportions,  all 
shall  not  avail  to  save  thee  from  lonesome- 
ness for  God,  so  long  as  thou  closest  thine 
heart  to  His  entrance,  so  long  as  thou  shut- 


184         Xlcvo  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

test  His  love  out  from  thy  love,  His  life  from 
thy  life,  His  essential  being  from  contact  with 
thy  being  in  that  great  act  which  we  call 
communion  with  God.  I  read  of  a  person 
the  other  day  who  spent  a  night  in  tears  out 
of  lonesomeness  for  God.  It  is  needless  to 
say  God  came  and  granted  companionship 
and  the  consciousness  thereof.  Thou  mayest 
be  alone  in  the  bright  illumination  of  the 
ball  room,  as  well  as  in  the  quiet  of  thy 
library  amongst  the  books  ;  thou  mayest  be 
alone  in  this  congregation,  with  many  people 
within  reach,  as  well  as  amid  the  trees  of  the 
virgin  forest  ;  thou  canst  not  place  thyself  in 
a  circumstance  where  thou  art  not  solitary 
within  if  God  is  apart.  Turning  thy  face  to 
the  heavens,  realizing  thou  art  without  Him 
in  the  world,  how  melancholy  is  thy  loneli- 
ness !  Seek  His^love  and  His  favor,  and  He 
shall  give  His  presence,  "before  whom  Cheru- 
bim and  Seraphim  continually  do  cry,  Holy, 
holy,  holy,  Lord  God  Almighty,"  and  before 
whom  angels  veil  their  faces. 


FREEDOM  OF  THE  SONS  OF  GOD. 

"  Verily^  verily,  I  say  to  you,,  Every  one  who 
doeth  sin  is  the  slave  of  sin^ — yohn 
8:34. 

IT  is  a  profound  comment  on  this  passage, 
and  equivalent  to  another  form  of  state- 
ment of  the  text,  which  says  that  personal 
liberty  is  secured  by  the  servitude  of  vices. 
The  habitues  of  the  larger  vices  will  allow 
a  good  name  to  become  as  empty  as  yes- 
terday's wind,  will  sacrifice  fame  so  that  it 
shall  become  as  naught,  a  reputation  like 
that  of  the  great  expounder  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, becoming  eaten  by  the  corroding  rust 
of  human  weakness,  so  to  remain  for  all 
time.  Nay  more,  they  will  lay  their  wives 
and  their  children  upon  the  altar  of  their 
vices  and  consume  them  there,  and  finally 
will  face  death  with  the  courage  of  a  hero 
but  the  heart  of  a  slave.  You  have  seen 
them  go  forth  into  the  land  of  shadows  as 
slave  caravans,  each  one  bearing  his  yoke, 
and  disappear  in  the  darkness  of  African 
forests.  Well  hath  Christ  said,  "  Every  one 
who  doeth  sin  is  the  slave  of  sin." 

(185) 


186         HetD  Concepts  of  £)I6  Dogmas. 

Political  liberty  is  another  thing,  but  after 
all  the  same  remark  applies  there  as  else- 
where ;  there  can  be  no  secure  liberty  save 
by  the  servitude  of  vices.  You  may  object 
to  sumptuary  laws  as  much  as  you  choose  ; 
but  when  vice  shall  rule,  liberty  shall  die. 
The  South  American  States  and  France  are 
illustrations  of  this  fact.  They  are  republics 
indeed,  but  a  republic  cannot  save  a  cor- 
rupted national  life.  Their  sudden  revolu- 
tions, each  closing  in  terrible  carnages  of 
blood,  are  but  ebullitions  of  a  tyranny  which 
is  never  wanting  in  the  State,  a  sure  sign 
of  its  moral  and  spiritual  degeneracy. 

Pythagoras,  the  Orphic  philosopher,  five 
hundred  years  before  Christ,  declared,  ''  He 
who  is  the  bondservant  of  sufferings  and  is 
ruled  by  them,  is  unable  to  be  free."  We 
have  here  a  particular  application  of  Christ's 
general  axiom.  For  sin  is  not  merely  stal- 
wart vice,  but  sin  as  defined  in  our  text  by 
Him  who  spake  as  never  man  spake,  is  also 
every  besetment  of  human  flesh  which,  crys- 
tallized into  a  habit,  maketh  the  better  nature 
its  servant  ;  it  may  be  gluttony  at  table  un- 
fitting for  active  duties  in  life  ;  it  may  be  the 
white  lie  of  deceit,  which  habitually  driveth 


^recbom  of  t(?e  Sons  of  ^ob.  187 

honor  into  hiding  and  maketh  truth  its  slave, 
or  other  fault. 

The  English  public  have  recently  been 
following  with  great  interest  a  prosecution  in 
the  courts.  It  is  known  as  Osborne  vs.  Har- 
grave.  The  suit  was  brought  by  Mrs.  Os- 
borne against  Mrs.  Hargrave,  her  cousin,  for 
saying  that  she,  Mrs.  Osborne,  had  stolen  a 
pearl  and  diamond  brooch  which  belonged 
to  her.  The  first  damaging  fact  was  that 
Mrs.  Osborne  knew  the  drawer,  opened  by 
a  secret  spring,  in  which  the  jewels  of  Mrs. 
Hargrave  were  kept.  She  was  identified  by 
the  jeweler,  and  her  own  handwriting  upon 
the  bank  note  received  in  payment  proved 
conclusively  that  the  charge  was  true. 

Mrs.  Osborne  was  a  long  time  in  hiding,  but 
was  finally  imprisoned  to  await  trial  for  per- 
jury. Witness  how  one  sin  led  her  in  bondage 
to  another.  Mrs.  Osborne  stole  the  jewels  ; 
she  then  carried  them  to  the  jeweler  as  her 
own,  she  gave  a  fictitious  address  and  a  fic- 
titious name,  told  her  fiance  that  she  was 
innocent,  and  he  married  her,  notwithstand- 
ing the  scandal  (April  4,  1891),  believing  her 
word.  But  this  was  not  enough  ;  to  carry 
out  the  pretense  and  satisfy  her  friends  she 


188         Hem  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

must  needs  bring  suit  against  the  Hargrave 
cousin,  deceive  her  lawyer  who  took  the 
case,  and  continue  to  dupe  her  husband  so 
egregiously  that  when  he  saw  the  signature 
upon  the  note,  he  fainted,  so  clear  was  proof 
of  his  wife's  transgression.  Indeed  is  he  that 
doeth  sin  the  slave  of  that  sin. 

I  started  with  the  declaration  of  Pythag- 
oras, "  He  who  is  the  bondservant  of  suffer- 
ings and  is  ruled  by  them  is  unable  to  be 
free."  Bodily  pain,  then,  to  revert  to  this 
original  statement,  may  be  a  cause  of  sin. 
The  weight  of  human  suffering  seems  heavy 
enough,  and  sympathetic  souls  will  say,  Let 
that  stand  by  itself;  but  while  the  impres- 
sions of  pain  are  transitory,  departing  with 
its  withdrawal,  yet  its  mastery  leaves  us  in 
bondage,  and  bondage  where  moral  results 
are  affected  is  sin.  Sudden  pain  may  make 
us  well-nigh  insane,  but  it  is  our  duty  to  bear 
it.  "I  cannot  help  swearing,"  says  one, 
"when  I  am  hurt."  You  are  in  bondage, 
then,  to  pain,  which  looses  the  tongue  to 
profanity.  ''  I  cannot  be  happy,"  says  an- 
other, "I  suffer  so  much."  The  real  ques- 
tion in  such  a  case  is  whether  we  will  be  in 
servitude  to  pain,  and  allow  it  to  destroy  the 
serviceableness  of  our  lives.     Shall  it  lead  us 


^recbom  of  tf?e  Sons  of  (5ob.  189 


to  a  fault-finding  temper  ?  shall  it  drive  us 
habitually  to  an  anaesthetic  on  slight  occa- 
sion ?  shall  it  fill  our  hearts  with  the  bitterness 
of  death,  and  turn  our  faces  away  from  God  ? 

Then  indeed  the  ministry  of  pain  has  be- 
come a  slavery  to  sin.  For  the  mastery  of 
one's  self  is  freedom  ;  and  he  who  is  mas- 
tered by  the  anguish  of  suffering,  is  not 
master  of  himself  Only  for  the  sick  is  such 
slavery  permissible.  For  all  who  are  short 
of  absolute  invalidism  the  mastery  of  the 
feelings  of  the  body  is  the  freedom  of  life. 
Indeed,  I  have  known  some  so  to  school 
themselves  to  the  endurance  of  their  ills  and 
weaknesses  of  the  flesh  that  they  endured 
hardness  as  good  soldiers  of  Jesus  Christ  unto 
the  end,  the  discipline  of  health  answering 
most  admirably  every  adversity  until  death. 
And  did  not  they  show  themselves  free  in- 
deed, and  servants  of  the  King.? 

In  the  "Memorabilia"  we  find  this  matter 
discussed.  Socrates  asks  :  "  Therefore  who- 
ever is  ruled  by  the  pleasures  of  the  body, 
and  because  of  these  is  not  able  to  practice 
the  best  things,  think  you  this  one  is  free  .?  — 
Least  of  all,"  he  replied.  Again  Socrates 
asks,  ''Just  as  doing  the  best  things  appears 
free  to  thee,  so  to  have  those  who  are  pre- 


190         Iceu)  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

vented  doing  such    things    do   you    think    is 
slavish  ?  —  Altogether  so,"  he  answered. 

I  have  quoted  this  to  show  the  argument 
of  Christ,  that  they  who  do  right  are  free 
and  they  who  do  wrong  are  in  bondage,  is 
one  which  He  shares  for  substance  with 
Socrates.  Granted  that  Socrates  did  not 
have  the  spiritual  insight  of  Christ  or  His 
moral  power,  yet  these  desires  of  the  body, 
so  far  as  we  can  enter  into  understanding 
of  the  language  of  his  time,  are  always  con- 
trasted with  the  things  of  the  spirit,  that 
is,  the  intellectual  nature.  This  question  of 
human  freedom  and  human  slavery  under 
sin,  this  pulpit  desires  to  argue  out  this 
morning  a  little  further. 

The  Christian  recognizes  obligation  in 
Christ's  service.  Paul  called  himself  the  bond- 
servant of  Jesus  Christ.  Wherein,  then,  does 
its  freedom  lie  ?  We  answer  that  it  is  a 
service  of  love  and  a  life  of  conviction,  in 
other  words,  a  life  of  obedience.  There  is, 
moreover,  freedom  of  choice  toward  evil,  as 
between  it  and  the  good.  But  evil  choices, 
followed,  result  in  foregone  conclusions,  in 
desires  unresisted  after  the  habit  has  been 
formed,  in  aimless  blundering  into  trans- 
gression   after    transgression.      Wrong-doing 


^reebom  of  tf^e  Sons  of  ^06.  191 


usurps  the  whole  life  and  the  whole  man.     In 
right  living  there  is  knowledge  of  good  and 
evil.     Good    men    refuse  to  choose  evil,  not 
because   they   do  not  know   it,   but   because 
they  spurn    it.     Do    evil    men    refuse    to    do 
good    because    they   know    what    it    is,    and 
being  well-informed    in    regard   to   it,   reject 
it   as   the    lesser    good  ?     What    knowledge 
have   the   great    majority   of  evilly   disposed 
men  of  what  is  really  good  ?     Certainly  there 
are  comparatively  few  who  really  know  what 
it  is  to  do  good,  who  fall  away  from  right- 
eous   living.     Our  older   theology  held  it  to 
be    impossible  to  fall   from  grace,  and  I  am 
inclined  to  think  it  was  right.     As  a  matter 
of  fact,   the   evilly  disposed  are   never  safe  ; 
settled   down    to   one  order  of  life,  you  can 
never  tell   how   soon    a    new    influence    may 
draw   them    away    to    new    paths.     Why   do 
fathers  and  mothers  watch  with  such  eager- 
ness the  young  manhood  of  their  sons  and 
the   young  womanhood   of  their   daughters, 
except   they   are   aware   a  wrongly  directed 
life  will   leave,  with  pleasure,  another  name 
for  likings,  at  the  helm,   the  flapping  sail  to 
any  breeze  ? 

I  wish  this  were  all  that  needed  to  be  said, 
but,  alas  !  it  is  not.     We  have  not  drawn  the 


192        Hem  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

full  picture  of  human  bondage  to  sin.  We 
have  drawn  some  sketch  of  the  bondage  of 
sin  where  sin  is  vice.  The  bondage  of  the 
individual  conscience  yet  remains.  It  is 
remarkable  that  the  conscience  can  be  en- 
slaved by  one's  prejudices.  For  this  rea- 
son some  people  can  never  do  anything 
right  because  we  never  will  grant  that  any- 
thing they  do  is  right.  Conscience  knows 
such  a  course  is  wrong,  but  the  sin  of  selfish- 
ness hath  enslaved  it.  Then,  too,  there  is  a 
wrong  moral  perspective,  the  minor  moral 
cause  being  unduly  magnified  and  left  to 
outweigh  the  mightier  cause,  and  men  are 
led  to  support  the  wicked  thing,  sin  reigning 
in  them  and  accomplishing  its  purposes  of 
enslavement  by  using  the  lesser  good  to 
accomplish  the  greater.  This  is  a  true  diag- 
nosis of  much  sinning  of  every  degree. 
Whether  we  down  righteousness  by  expe- 
diency, or  whether  the  Jesuit,  for  love  of 
Christ,  sanctifies  unrighteous  means,  or  the 
Indian  thug  makes  the  victim  of  his  assas- 
sination an  offering  to  Shiva  the  destroyer, 
it  is  all  the  same  ;  it  is  the  satisfaction  of 
the  moral  nature  with  an  object  to  result  in 
its  eternal  enslavement  to  transgression. 
There  results  a  moral  complacency  or  satis- 


^reebom  of  tE^e  Sons  of  ^ob.  193 

faction  with  the  condition  of  the  slave  ;  then 
men  can  afford  to  scoff  at  moral  issues,  and 
rest  satisfied  with  the  reign  of  error  in  the 
community,  for  it  is  like  their  own  moral 
state. 

Most  singular  is  the  conscience,  for  while 
it  can  be  mastered  for  substance  yet  never 
wholly.  As  the  German  tribes  never  were 
conquered  by  the  Roman  legions,  so  we  may 
term  this  the  Gothic  part  of  the  kingdom  of 
man-soul.  The  conscience  money  often  re- 
stored, and  the  wishes  that  you  and  I  have 
that  we  could  make  some  wrongs  right  for 
which  money  cannot  atone,  the  sudden  start 
of  guilty  men  when  they  see  the  face  remind- 
ing them  of  their  transgression,  and  the  con- 
fession of  undiscovered  sin  sometimes  as 
damning  as  murder,  confession  of  which  is 
indeed  dangerous,  are  cases  in  point.  Some 
men  with  reminder,  some  men  without  re- 
minder, are  each  after  all  the  slaves  of  fear 
which  is  born  of  sin.  To  have  one's  waking 
moments  never  secure  from  the  dagger  of 
one's  conscience,  or  to  put  the  face  in  post- 
ure as  a  kind  of  shield  against  the  world  to 
save  us  from  the  moral  death  that  would 
follow  on  exposure,  as  Bismarck,  or  Tito 
Melema,  put  on  armor  and  so  saved  himself 


194         Iten?  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

from  the  dagger  of  the  assassin,  all  this 
bespeaks  slavery  to  a  mastery  ignoble  and 
debasing.  And  the  heart,  how  timid  it  is, 
how  cringing  before  its  master,  that  a  stray 
shot  from  the  bow  of  memory  should  set  it 
straight  a-quaking  and  ready  to  yield  itself 
to  horrors,  perchance  to  death. 

That  all  men  who  profess  faith  in  Christ 
and  do  not  yield  full  devotion,  reap  accord- 
ing as  they  sow,  and  find  partial  deliver- 
ance and  somewhat  of  hope,  is  but  right. 
But  those  who  make  God  their  whole  por- 
tion, like  Cardinal  Manning  or  like  Living- 
stone and  Gordon,  like  every  saintly  person 
on  earth,  find  in  saintliness  a  true  freedom, 
with  its  bracing  of  the  nerves  and  its  buoy- 
ant life  without  fear.  Said  the  Master,  **  If 
therefore  the  Son  shall  make  you  free,  ye 
shall  be  free  indeed." 


THE  POWER  OF  HABIT. 

"  I  beseech  you  therefore,  brethren^  by  the  mercies 
of  God,  that  ye  present  your  bodies  a  lining 
sacrifice,  holy,  acceptable  unto  God,  which 
is  your  reasonable  service.'''' — Rom.   12:1. 

AT  the  beginning  of  an  essay  on  '' Cus- 
tom and  Education,"  Lord  Bacon  says  : 
"Men's  thoughts  are  much  according  to  their 
inclination  ;  their  discourse  and  speeches  ac- 
cording to  their  learning  and  infused  opin- 
ions ;  but  their  deeds  are  —  as  they  have 
been  accustomed."  Education  therefore  is 
midway  between  the  lawlessness  of  man's 
nature,  which  acts  because  it  must,  and  the 
formal  acts  of  man  in  society  and  forming  a 
part  thereof.  This  is  a  superficial  definition  ; 
habit  is  deeper  than  the  external  man. 
Thinking  has  habits  as  well  as  doing,  saying 
as  well  as  acting.  All  thinking  seems  an  as- 
sociation of  ideas,  so  that  habit  has  its  place 
in  all  thought.  We  have  power  to  form  an 
idea,  but  in  calling  it  up  we  associate  it  with 
something  else.  We  recall  words  by  think- 
ing of  the  man  that  said  them.  We  fix  a  date 
by  something  else  that  happened  at  the  same 

(195) 


196         Xlzw  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

time.  We  recall  a  face  through  the  form, 
clothing,  and  speech,  and  the  incident 
through  another  associated  thing. 

Language  shows  this  same.  The  word 
thing,  for  instance,  is  the  Anglo-Saxon 
thingafiy  **  to  become  heavy,"  hence  it  is  any- 
thing material,  and  so  often  means  any  sepa- 
rable or  distinguishable  object  of  thought. 
By  association  of  ideas  this  word  has  arisen. 
Likewise  by  association  with  it  as  an  organic 
part  of  speech,  it  has  power  in  language. 
That  is,  we  use  words  according  to  certain 
well-defined  senses  established  by  the  usages 
of  society.  The  custom  of  society  determines 
our  vocabulary,  for  most  part.  Doing,  say- 
ing, thinking,  are  all  words  expressive  of 
conceptions  formed  of  things  habitually 
done,  habit  being  an  important  factor  therein. 
Verily,  man  is  a  creature  of  habit. 

It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  in  moral 
things  man  has  need  of  this  same  discipline 
of  habit,  which  he  has  in  every  other  depart- 
ment of  his  life.  For  this  end  alone,  has 
society  protected  itself  by  innumerable  laws, 
unwritten  indeed,  but  all  the  same  laws  of 
moral  power,  each  one  a  breakwater  protect- 
ing the  precious  silver-laden  argosies  of  the 
soul.     It  is  easier  to  break  the    written    law 


Cf?e  pomer  of  V}ah\l  197 

than  that  moral  law  sustained  by  the  senti- 
ment of  a  multitude.  A  written  law  is  a  very- 
strawy  affair,  without  the  moral  support  of 
public  sentiment.  The  king's  officers  found 
it  so  when  they  went  to  cut  the  masts  re- 
served in  the  New  England  forests  for  the 
royal  navy.  Sumptuary  laws  prove  it  so 
when  the  local  sentiment  does  not  conform 
to  the  laws  enacted  by  the  legislatures  of 
their  respective  commonwealths.  Indeed, 
our  whole  system  of  government,  like  all 
democracies,  is  simply  an  endeavor  to  put 
the  written  law  in  touch  with  popular  senti- 
ment, that  there  may  be  less  mobs  in  arms 
against  government  and  more  real  effort 
made  to  benefit  the  masses.  That  public 
sentiment,  therefore,  which  is  mightier  than 
the  rule  of  kings,  and  without  which  the 
strongest  legal  finding  is  but  weak  as  the 
paper  on  which  it  is  written,  however  lofty 
the  court  that  grants  it,  may  well  challenge 
the  respect  of  you  and  me,  however  reluctant 
we  may  be  to  listen  to  its  best  judgment  on 
moral  and  social  questions,  especially  in  so  far 
as  it  has  sought  to  advance  righteousness  in 
the  hearts  of  all  the  people.  But  it  is  notice- 
able that  those  who  deny  legislative  law,  also 
deny  the  moral  sentiments  of  mankind.    They 


1  ^^         Xlcw  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

who  break  one  kind  of  law  break  both  kinds  ; 
they  are  a  law  unto  themselves.  What  they 
hate  and  condemn  is  restraint. 

Good  habits  have  two  special  functions : 
First,  they  conserve  natural  endowment, 
making  capacity  tell  in  some  given  direction. 
A  dozen  colts  in  pasture,  racing  about  from 
one  end  to  the  other,  having  sure  habits 
indeed  of  a  wild,  roving  sort,  so  that  predic- 
tion may  be  made  about  them,  such  as,  here 
they  will  come  for  water,  and  there  for  grass, 
when  trained  by  habit  to  harness,  will  pull 
loads,  or  draw  batteries,  or  proudly  lead 
into  battle  cohorts  of  cavalry,  each  one  as 
perfectly  trained  as  the  rider  upon  his  back. 
Similarly,  men  are  like  a  gregarious  herd 
beating  about  for  food,  the  satisfactions  of 
thirst,  and  for  companionship  until  the 
trained  man  shall  supercede  the  untamed, 
and  regularity  of  toil,  either  with  head  or 
hand,  shall  conserve  the  energy  of  life, 
and  make  productive  the  fallow  lands  of 
creaturehood. 

So  in  moral  things  there  is  a  conservation 
of  energy.  Every  one  that  is  a  student  be- 
comes more  and  more  conscious,  as  he  pur- 
sues a  literary  or  professional  life,  that  there 
is  a  limit  to  human    capacity.     A  man  can 


CI?e  pott?er  of  £)abit.  199 

work  so  many  hours,  and  can  become  so 
exhausted  with  bodily  toil  that  he  can  labor 
no  longer ;  similarly,  those  who  use  their 
brains  in  any  calling  find  they  have  their 
intellectual  capacity,  which  they  may  de- 
velop, and  which,  when  dissipated,  their  all 
is  gone.  That  same  capacity  untrained  can 
amount  to  but  little.  It  is  a  conservation  of 
that  energy  which,  instead  of  being  dissipated 
aimlessly,  shall  be  turned  into  some  channel 
where  its  output  shall  count.  Here  I  am 
with  this  plant  in  the  world  ;  it  has  a  capac- 
ity for  physical  labor.  I  must  exercise  that 
in  some  way.  The  body  is  the  basis  of  the 
intellectual  life.  I  can  so  avoid  the  develop- 
ment of  my  body  that  I  cannot  half  think. 
Undoubtedly  all  of  us  who  do  not  perform 
manual  labor  in  our  callings  err  in  having  no 
thought  of  exercise  and  physical  development 
of  our  bodies.  The  thought-power  has  rela- 
tions to  the  nervous  system  the  physical 
basis  of  thought,  and  that  system,  is  simi- 
larly dependent  upon  the  rest  of  the  body, 
upon  which  depends  the  exercise  of  its 
functions. 

The  pale  invalid  stretched  on  a  bed  of 
languor,  from  which  he  cares  not  to  limp 
out-of-doors   by  day  and  on  which  he    can- 


200         HctD  (Eoncepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

not  sleep  at  night,  near  by  being  the  elec- 
tric light,  which  he  can  turn  on  at  will 
through  a  button,  and  reaching  out  for  the 
books  heaped  about  him,  beguiling  himself 
from  thought  of  his  own  deplorable  con- 
dition to  which  he  has  been  brought  by 
forced  and  precocious  intellectual  develop- 
ment, is  a  fine  illustration  of  how  needful  it 
is  that  habits  of  health  be  given  the  body, 
conserving  the  powers  of  the  whole  man. 
How  much  better  it  is,  in  the  long  run,  to  have 
a  strong  body  with  a  stupid  intellect,  than  a 
strong  intellect  stupefied,  in  the  moiety  at 
least,  by  the  sickly  incompetence  of  the  body 
consequent  upon  its  deterioration  through 
the  neglect  to  conserve  it  by  healthful  bodily 
habits.  That  the  schools  see  this  now  and 
make  provision  for  the  health  of  pupils  in 
providing  proper  training,  is  one  of  the  best 
signs  in  our  times. 

But  granted  a  healthy  mind  and  a  sound 
body,  the  fact  must  not  be  lost  sight  of  that 
the  mind  can  do  only  so  much  and  no  more. 
Under  too  great  a  load  of  intellectual  activi- 
ties the  giant  Spurgeon  has  recently  suc- 
cumbed at  fifty-seven.  The  mind  is  stricken 
down  as  under  the  blows  of  an  enemy  ;  all 
the  material  for  the  maintenance  of  life   has 


C{?e  poit)er  of  ^ahxt  201 

been  burned  up  by  the  torch  of  knowledge. 
It  is  the  opinion  of  experts  that  the  human 
body  can  do  as  much  in  eight  hours  as  in 
ten,  which,  if  true,  will  inevitably  shorten  the 
hours  of  labor.  The  human  mind  can  un- 
doubtedly force  itself  as  much  as  the  body, 
possibly  more  so.  But  it,  too,  has  its  limits. 
Burn  the  torch  twelve  hours  a  day,  and  it 
will  last  thirty  years  ;  burn  it  eight  hours, 
and  it  will  last  fifty  years.  Make  your  hab- 
its, therefore,  that  they  shall  conserve  the 
maintenance  of  life,  and  give  the  greatest 
possible  output  to  labor. 

Do  not,  however,  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that 
in  a  given  period  which  will  fully  exhaust 
the  nervous  powers  of  the  body,  only  so 
much  can  be  done,  and  nothing  more.  En- 
ergy once  expended  under  these  circum- 
stances is  forever  spent.  If  you  give  up  your 
time  to  novel  reading  until  the  brain  reels, 
there  is  nothing  left  for  science  or  art  or 
knowledge  of  any  kind.  The  vis  viva  of  the 
mind  is  gone  ;  you  can  put  nothing  in  mo- 
tion. The  molecules  of  the  brain  may  act, 
but  they  cannot  produce  thought.  You  read 
the  page,  but  cannot  remember  a  line.  As 
you  can  put  only  so  much  in,  it  behooves 
you   to  be  careful  what  you  put  in. 


202         Hem  Concepts  of  £>{b  Do^jmas. 

These  two  truths  I  desire  to  apply  to  total 
abstinence.  Use  alcohol  habitually,  and  you 
merely  interfere  with  the  normal  running 
processes  of  the  body.  You  burn  up  a  little 
more  fiber,  nature's  reserve  for  exigencies, 
exposing  yourself  to  premature  death  from 
disease.  You  burn  up  what  you  need,  what 
you  cannot  replace  by  any  assistance  of 
modern  medicine.  For  a  given  output  of 
thought  you  are  paying  an  unnecessary  per 
cent.  And  when  we  turn  to  the  sociability 
of  the  saloon  and  the  life  of  the  inordinate 
drinker,  the  case  truly  becomes  bad.  What- 
ever may  be  the  delights  of  intoxication,  or 
the  pleasures  of  those  peculiar  saloon  friend- 
ships of  which  we  hear  so  much,  they  are 
simply  an  expenditure  of  energy  in  foolish 
and  useless  fashion.  The  radiancy  of  the 
illumination  of  the  mind  is,  however  one 
may  strive  to  conceal  it,  a  burning  out  of 
the  torch  of  nature,  and  a  wasting  of  ener- 
gies which  might  have  been  diverted  to 
noble  purposes. 

See  that  dullard  who,  hulking  about  in  all 
weathers,  lives  a  hermit  in  squalor  and  lone- 
some solitariness.  His  education  is  noth- 
ing, and  his  natural  power  was  wasted  ;  pure 
laziness  stunts  and  spends  the  whole  endow- 


C^c  pomcr  of  ^abtt.  203 


ment,  and  you  despise  him.  But  how  about 
that  other,  resting  his  elbows  on  saloon 
counters,  who  has  succeeded  in  life,  using 
opportunities  and  achieving,  but  squandering 
in  prodigality  the  precious  endowments  of 
God,  chasing  the  mirages  of  the  intoxicated 
imagination  over  every  moor  until  the  way 
is  lost  and  every  opportunity  is  gone,  until 
heaven  is  obscured  under  the  mists,  and  the 
Star  of  Bethlehem  no  more  gives  bearings 
for  pilotage,  and  God,  as  he  speaks  through 
the  moral  law  in  the  conscience,  is  heard  no 
more,  and  the  better  nature  does  not  sleep, 
but  the  rather  dies  a  slow,  lingering,  but 
perfect  death  ?  And  yet  we  hesitate  to  ab- 
stain for  the  sake  of  the  weak. 

Secondly,  good  habits  not  only  conserve 
capacity,  but  they  also  enlarge  and  broaden 
it.  In  a  trip  to  Escanaba  I  did  not  see  a 
single  harbor  on  the  west  side  Lake  Michigan 
which  was  not  built  by  double  rows  of  piles. 
So  good  habits  open  a  path  over  the  shallows 
of  the  soul,  and  bring  a  new  commerce  over 
the  waters.  Hence  it  is  the  man  becomes 
great  and  strong  ;  he  has  conserved  and  en- 
larged himself. 

The  day  of  genius  is  past  ;  its  heroes  are 
rapidly  being  forgotten.     It   is  the    Michael 


204         Hctt)  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

Angelos,  who  by  hard  work  achieve  their 
place,  winning  immortal  honors.  This  has 
been  accepted  ever  since  Wellington  over- 
came the  erratic  Bonaparte  at  Waterloo 
by  vulgar  hard  pounding  which  wore  out 
sixty  thousand  fighters,  but  wound  up  for- 
ever, let  us  hope,  among  modern  men  the 
notion  that  any  gift  of  birth  can  keep  pace 
with  the  increment  which  may  be  added  to 
a  bright  mind  as  it  shall  develop  under  the 
power  of  habit.  Bacon  quotes  Machiavelli 
where  he  says,  "There  is  no  trusting  to  the 
force  of  nature,  nor  to  the  boastfulness  of 
words,  except  it  be  corroborated  by  custom." 
This  is  truth  ;  many  men  promise  reform, 
few  men  follow  it  out  to  the  end.  The  habit 
of  the  person  will  alone  tell  us  what  his  word 
is  worth.  You  would  not  take  the  promise  of 
a  man  whom  you  knew  to  be  habitually  un- 
truthful, because  you  count  his  habit  stronger 
than  his  promise.  It  is  easier  to  make  a  silk 
purse  out  of  a  sow's  ear  than  to  make  any- 
thing out  of  him  who  has  no  habits  you 
can  trust.  He  who  habitually  does  his  duty 
is  the  man  who  rises  to  opportunities,  and 
who  is  equal  thereto.  Coolness  and  audacity 
made  Grant  what  he  was  ;  thoroughness  was 
the  characteristic  of  George  H.  Thomas  ;  de- 


CI?e  porper  of  ^abtt.  205 

votion  to  the  will  of  God  furnishes  the  key  to 
the  character  of  the  great  Spurgeon,  now, 
alas  !  no  more,  and  doing  one's  duty,  to  that 
of  Gordon,  Livingstone,  and  Mackay. 

Now,  what  interferes  with  all  habit  but 
this,  the  irrationality  of  appetite  and  the 
whim  of  desire  ?  Ten  thousand  million  wills 
have  been  broken  down  the  past  century 
by  drink.  I  do  not  care  about  the  pro- 
cess, whether  they  began  as  moderate  drink- 
ers or  not.  Sufficient  for  me  is  it,  to  know 
that  they  have  been  mastered  who  had  other- 
wise mastered  themselves.  On  the  altar 
of  this  Moloch  have  been  sacrificed  thou- 
sands of  millions  of  good  intentions,  dear, 
sweet,  good  intentions,  as  nice  to  look  upon 
as  red  apples  in  God's  country  across  the 
mountains  of  Oregon,  to  which  the  Cali- 
fornia miners  turned  with  longing  eyes.  But 
without  good  habits  they  can  be  easily 
shaken  off  by  the  slightest  wind  of  appetite, 
as  the  Early  Rose  and  the  Summer  Harvest 
grafts,  high  up  in  the  old-fashioned  apple- 
trees  in  the  East,  when  fully  ripened,  were 
shaken  down  by  the  earliest  zephyrs  of  the 
morning,  and  so,  lying  toothsome  upon  the 
dewy  grass,  were  soon  in  a  swine's  snout. 
A  great  painter  typified  gluttony  by  painting 


206         Hert)  (Concepts  of  £)I6  Dogmas. 

under  it  a  figure  in  despair  trying  to  fight  its 
way  upward  over  a  cloud  fashioned  like  a 
swine's  head.  Fit  symbol  that  for  the  stimu- 
lated appetite  that  rules  in  the  person  given 
over  to  the  beastiality  of  drunkenness  !  In 
the  words  of  the  apostle,  **  I  beseech  you, 
therefore,  brethren,  that  ye  present  your 
bodies  a  living  sacrifice,  holy,  acceptable 
unto  God,  which  is  your  reasonable  service," 
which,  as  we  interpret  it,  in  these  days  of 
the  riot  of  appetite,  means,  ''  Live  total  ab- 
stinence lives." 


HONEST  SELF-DENIAL. 

'*  But  insomuch  as  ye  are  partakers  of  ChrisVs 
sufferings,  rejoice.^' —  /  Peter  4  :  ij. 

WE  cannot  enter  into  Christ's  passion  by- 
thrusting  ourselves  into  suffering  as  a 
means  of  purchasing  the  divine  favor.  It  is 
glorious  to  suffer,  if  one  must,  to  preserve 
some  righteousness  or  to  save  some  good 
cause.  This  premise  should  be  prefixed  to 
everything  we  may  say  on  self-denial,  as  the 
soul  loves  false  weights  and  measures,  and  is 
often  as  eager  for  them  as  dishonest  traders 
for  false  balances. 

The  one  thing  on  which  self-denial  de- 
pends is  love,  like  the  love  of  Christ,  that 
flowered  aright  in  silver  blossoms,  which  re- 
tain their  beauty  through  the  far-spent  ages. 
He  that  loveth  much  doeth  much  ;  he  that 
loveth  little  doeth  little ;  he  that  loveth 
naught  doeth  naught.  So  thou  canst  easily 
put  thyself  where  thou  belongest.  Didst 
thou  ever  do  it,  and  find  the  teaching  of 
God's  book  of  life  in  thine  own  heart  .-*  Thus 
self-denial  may  be  thy  condemner,  and  give 

(207) 


208         Xlzvo  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

thee  a  moment's  dissatisfaction  ;  and  so  it 
shall  be  always  to  us  all.  But  we  may  make 
self-denial  our  coadjutor,  helper,  friend.  For 
comradeship  and  fellowship  with  this  mystic 
one,  if  thou  art  candidate,  a  few  simple  rules 
I  give  thee  for  thy  novitiate,  that  thou 
mayest  come  as  men  of  old  came  to  the 
Pythagorean  mysteries  in  which  thou  art  to 
walk  in  white  with  the  chosen  ones  of  purest 
counsels,  and  together  with  them  learn  the 
deep  mysteries  of  the  hidden  life.  Three  sim- 
ple rules  are  presented  as  guiding  thoughts 
concerning  that  way.  Self-denial  demands 
sacrifice  ;  yes,  indeed,  but  note  well,  a  sacri- 
fice on  your  part  ;  I  give  thee,  therefore,  the 
first  rule  :  — 

All  true  self-sacrifice  is  a  sacrifice  of  your- 
self and  not  of  some  one  else,  and  further- 
more, a  sacrifice,  of  yourself  alone,  and  not  of 
yourself  plus  some  one  else. 

This  may  not  commend  itself  to  your  judg- 
ment, but  let  us  see.  A  layman  marries  a 
wife,  changes  his  mind  as  to  his  calling  in 
life,  and  drags  her  unwillingly  into  the 
self-denial  of  a  home  missionary  field.  This 
he  has  no  moral  right  to  do.  He  has  a 
right  to  sacrifice  himself  and  no  one  else. 
Or   a  person    puts   himself  in    such    a    place 


^onest  Sclf=6ental.  209 

that  his  children  do  not  have  suitable  op- 
portunities in  life.  The  man  has  done  well 
by  himself,  but  he  has  not  remembered 
others  in  his  plan  of  life.  Or  he  may  un- 
wisely plan  his  great  philanthropy,  and  bring- 
it  to  naught,  causing  the  useless  benevolence 
of  those  who  heard  his  call,  but  have  been 
sorry  ever  since  that  they  gave  heed,  and 
tried  to  help  him  out.  It  is  this  view  of  the 
case  which  has  led  the  preacher  to  feel  that 
celibacy  would  be  a  powerful  adjunct  in  mis- 
sionary operations  ;  not  an  enforced  celibacy, 
but  one  which  is  essential  to  true  self-denial, 
which  would  sacrifice  itself  and  no  one  else. 
The  bitterness  of  spirit  in  some  hearts, 
owing  to  the  self-denial  to  which  they  have 
been  unwillingly  forced  to  become  parties, 
has  made  me  feel  most  keenly  that  good 
men  and  women  must  needs  be  more  careful, 
not  how  they  sacrifice  themselves,  but  how 
they  sacrifice  something  themselves,  while 
they  throw  the  weight  of  their  burden  of  love 
for  the  sake  of  which  they  hope  to  shine 
in  heaven  on  other  people's  shoulders,  as  if 
good  service  in  the  kingdom  of  God  con- 
sisted in  large  measure  of  a  person's  success 
in  dragging  others  in  and  attaching  them'to 
the   car   of  the  Lord,  and   compelling   them 


210         Hert)  Concepts  of  £)I6  Dogmas, 

to  drag  it  through  weary  years,  whether  they 
will  or  no. 

Self-sacrifice  should  not  be  selfish  sacrifice. 
This  false  self-sacrifice  has  been  parodied  in 
the  world.  If  it  were  not  the  preacher's  set- 
tled conviction  that  a  laugh  in  church  serv- 
ice has  no  moral  value,  he  would  illustrate 
it  by  a  story.  But  this  much  needs  to  be 
said,  that  this  kind  of  false  heroics,  the  jest 
of  the  street,  deserves  to  be  pilloried  in  the 
house  of  God,  and  given  the  brand  of  Cain  as 
sign  of  its  eternal  shame. 

Self-denial  which  entails  sacrifice  upon 
others  and  in  no  wise  upon  ourselves,  is  well 
illustrated  in  some  forms  of  pious  good  ad- 
vice. College  presidents  advise  boys  to  go 
as  missionaries  ;  why  do  they  not  go  them- 
selves ?  City  preachers  advise  men  to  self- 
sacrifice  in  humble  parishes.  The  rich  invite 
the  poor  to  large  self-denials,  while  they  do 
not  invite  themselves  to  a  single  cup  of 
coffee  less.  We  advise  forgiveness,  but  our- 
selves nourish  wrath  on  slight  occasion.  It 
seems  as  if  a  person  washed  waifs  on  con- 
tract, at  a  cheap  lodging  house  in  the  city, 
and  sudsed  them  well,  regardless  of  eyes 
and  mouth,  but  neglected  his  own  person, 
carefully    rubbing    off    the    soap    dry    which 


^onest  5cIf=6emaL  211 

had  come  upon  his  own  hands  and  refusing 
the  application  of  water.  For  to  tell  the 
truth  it  is  only  the  filthy  imaginings  of  a 
vain  mind  that  despises  the  purifications  of 
self-sacrifice.  This  whole  style  of  life  is  con- 
temptible. It  is  pious  cant,  which  covers  not 
a  multitude  of  sins  but  a  horde  of  lies,  part  of 
which  we  tell  ourselves,  and  part  of  which 
we  tell  other  people.  All  of  this  self-deceit 
is  due  to  wrong  conceptions  of  self-denial, 
as  a  thing  the  sham  appearance  of  which 
is  very  blessed  ;  whereas  the  only  bless- 
ing is  in  the  heart,  which  is  always  alloyed 
by  even  the  consciousness  that  the  deed  is  a 
thing  of  common  fame,  the  credit  thereof 
becoming  an  arousement  of  pride  and  the 
temptation  to  a  sham  life  of  hypocrisy,  var- 
nished over  with  pretentious  acts  and  words 
of  self-denial  which  cost  nothing  and  hence 
are  a  good  stock  in  trade,  if  that  sort  of  stock 
is  the  kind  desired. 

The  second  rule  of  self-sacrifice  is  as  fol- 
lows :  Sacrifice  all  you  want  to,  except  your 
better  self. 

Some  people  think  that  in  religion  they 
have  no  self;  which  is  unfortunately  not 
true.  This  self  undoubtedly  has  duties  ;  it 
has  also  rights  which  cannot  be  denied  with- 


212         Hen?  Concepts  of  £>lb  Dogmas. 

out  loss  of  power  and  function  on  the  nobler 
side  of  life.  This  is  easily  illustrated.  In 
the  old  church  many  a  man  went  into  a 
monastery  and  became  a  Benedictine  monk, 
and  spent  his  time  tilling  the  land,  which 
meant  something  for  civilization,  though  but 
little  to  himself  After  years  of  devotion  to 
religion  and  the  church  he  was  a  piece  of  a 
man.  It  is  all  very  well  at  first  blush  for 
ministers  to  say  nothing  that  remotely  bears 
on  moral  questions,  for  fear  some  one  will 
take  offense,  but  when  after  a  course  of  years 
the  individual  has  lost  the  use  of  his  moral 
powers  of  stamina,  you  find  that  there  is  only 
the  fraction  of  a  man  in  the  pulpit.  When  a 
person  cannot  read  the  daily  papers  without 
sin,  as  I  used  to  hear  some  say  out  East,  and 
who  therefore  despised  all  knowledge  of  cur- 
rent events  as"  sinful,  they  had  a  wrong  kind 
of  religion,  because  it  militated  against  the 
perfect,  noble,  fully  developed,  all-round  man- 
manhood  and  womanhood,  which  it  is  the 
right  of  every  believer  to  possess. 

Christianity  was  not  meant  to  be  a  limita- 
tion on  individual  advancement.  Great  bur- 
dens of  self-sacrifice  which  dwarf  the  man 
should  be  undertaken  solely  when  the  person 
is  fully  convinced  that  the  sacrifices  involved 


^omst  Self^bental.  213 

are  justified  in  view  of  what  he  can  accom- 
plish ;  that  is,  whether  loss  in  one  direction 
may  not  be  made  up  by  gain  in  another. 
There  is,  of  course,  the  familiar  considera- 
tion of  the  advantage  gained  by  the  special- 
ist in  the  branch  to  which  he  gives  attention, 
in  consequence  of  which  much  must  be  lost 
in  the  broader  range  of  things. 

We  see  the  same  thing  in  all  life.  Agassiz 
could  tell  by  a  bone  the  character  of  the 
fish  to  which  it  belonged,  and  this  was  re- 
markably verified  by  subsequent  discovery, 
but  he  knew  little  besides  natural  science. 
So  in  religion,  one  man  cannot  do  every- 
thing, he  must  specialize,  and  with  the  gain 
there  must  be  the  loss.  Next  to  murder, 
suicide  is  ranked  as  mortal  sin,  that  is,  next 
to  murder  of  another  is  the  murder  of  self 
So  it  seems,  next  to  the  sacrifice  of  others 
is  the  sacrifice  of  one's  self  in  moral  things  ; 
the  first  is  cowardly,  the  second  is  foolish. 
Does  that  seem  hard  }  It  is  true,  whether 
hard  or  not.  Who  doubts  that  the  millions 
of  monks  have  squandered  their  better  selves 
under  vows,  and  well-kept  vows  often,  of  the 
utmost  self-abnegation. 

Protestantism,  too,  has  made  similar  mis- 
take,   though    not   with    such    awful    conse- 


214         Hem  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

quences.  '  We,  too,  have  taught  that  the 
motive  behind  the  act  alone  sanctifies  that 
act.  Thus  have  we  glorified  stupidity  on 
the  one  hand,  and  stricken  the  Lord's  cause 
on  the  other,  for  a  round  man  in  a  square 
hole  cannot  glorify  God  as  he  ought.  Wit- 
ness in  the  many  and  many  a  minister  who 
is  confident  that  the  Lord  called  him  into 
his  work,  and  the  unanimous,  or  all  but 
unanimous,  conviction  of  every  one  else  that 
God  called  some  one  else,  and  he  answered. 
Now  we  make  bold  to  say  that  in  spoiling 
a  good  business  man  to  make  a  preacher 
who  is  utterly  incapable  of  being  useful,  is 
strange  way  of  making  self-denial  tell  for 
righteousness. 

There  is  on  Somerset  street,  Boston,  a  fine 
brick  building  belonging  to  the  theological 
department  of  Boston  University  ;  it  is  called 
Jacob  Sleeper  Hall,  after  the  donor.  Jacob 
Sleeper,  when  a  young  man,  was  a  student 
for  the  ministry  in  the  Methodist  Church, 
but  his  eyes  failed  him,  and  he  gave  his  at- 
tention to  business.  He  was  very  successful, 
and  became  a  millionaire,  but  he  did  not  lose 
his  early  bent.  He  was  the  Nestor  of  all 
Methodist  enterprises  in  New  England,  par- 
ticularly of  the  Boston  University,  and  sup- 


^onest  Self^bental.  215 

ported  eight  or  ten  ministers  all  the  time 
himself,  each  one  of  whom  doubtless  did 
more  good  than  Jacob  Sleeper  himself  could 
possibly  have  done  if  he  had  gone  into  the 
ministry,  and  had  given  his  life  to  what 
would,  on  the  face  of  it,  seem  a  more  self- 
denying  experience.  This  man  was  provi- 
dentially stayed  in  his  mad  career.  God, 
however,  I  am  persuaded,  would  have  us 
stay  ourselves  by  fully  counting  the  cost. 
For  this  purpose  I  bid  you  sacrifice  all  except 
your  better  self  Remember  that  a  gift  for 
one  thing  is  sacrificed,  if,  destroying  it,  you 
persist  in  turning  to  something  to  which  you 
are  not  adapted.  Remember  the  endowment 
of  your  nature  is  a  gift  of  God,  especial  and 
holy,  and  at  first  hand  from  the  Lord  and 
Giver  of  life. 

The  third  rule  of  self-sacrifice  is  :  Check- 
mate evil  thoughts  with  antidotes. 

"  I  will  not  think  this  thing,"  amounts  to 
but  little,  in  the  ordinary  experience  of 
temptation.  To  make  that  will  against  evil 
thoughts  powerful,  you  must  give  it  the 
panacea  of  something  else  to  think  about, 
which  shall  be  free  of  association  with  the 
wicked  thought.  Prayer,  a  scripture  pas- 
sage, a  verse  from  a  Christian  poet,  has  often 


216         Xtetp  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

been  the  salvation  of  a  person  from  his  bad 
thoughts.  A  good  book  is  a  power  in  help- 
ing men  and  women  over  the  frictions  of 
every-day  life.  As  married  people  settle 
down,  they  find  a  life  which  for  most 
stretches  away  from  them  like  the  great 
plains  of  the  river  systems  in  the  West, 
seemingly  flat  as  a  floor,  above  which  there 
is  a  brilliant  sunshine  falling  upon  a  beauti- 
ful verdure,  but  replaced  now  and  then  by 
clouds  and  storm.  The  monotony  of  that 
level  life  will  be  broken,  if  one  can  but 
call  in  the  wizards  of  the  imagination,  and 
through  poetry  and  prose  read  silently  or 
aloud  ;  'new  vistas  are  disclosed,  as  when 
the  ravine  by  the  water-courses  opens  up  to 
one  on  the  river  heights,  and  the  eye  sees 
again  a  diversified  landscape,  with  the  early 
autumnal  tints  .painting  all  with  the  colors 
of  a  divine  artist.  So  we  may  find  antidote 
against  the  corroding  cares  of  daily  life. 

We  sometimes  fawn  upon  others  ;  believe 
me,  we  fawn  too  often  upon  our  baser  selves. 
And  by  sentimentality,  as  if  personal  pleas- 
ure must  always  have  a  whole  hide,  we  foster 
the  same  spirit  in  others.  Why,  poor  man, 
he  is  struggling  with  his  appetite  ;  poor  fel- 
low, how  helpless  he  is  ;  let  all  men  pity  and 


fjonest  Self^bental.  217 

wring  their  hands  !  Now  I  suggest  that  he 
play  the  man.  Penitents  in  monasteries  lash 
themselves  for  their  evil  thoughts.  If  any 
man  would  free  himself  from  appetite,  let 
him  similarly  persuade  himself  that  his  appe- 
tite is  not  too  good  to  be  trampled  upon  as 
a  hated  thing ;  then  let  him  buy  in  some 
leather  store  a  knout  such  as  is  used  in 
Russia  without  stint  upon  the  backs  of  free- 
men who  as  much  as  dare  to  criticise  the 
Czar's  officers  ;  and  when  the  glamour  of  the 
senses  is  arising  which  will  soon  shut  out 
the  light  of  day  from  the  moral  universe  of 
that  microcosm,  let  him  bare  his  shoulders 
and  whip  himself,  and  believe  me,  praying  God 
to  nerve  his  arm,  he  will  soon,  holding  this 
form  of  self-denial  firmly  before  him,  monas- 
tic though  it  is,  be  able  through  self-denial 
to  trample  his  destroyer  under  foot.  This 
may  seem  severe,  but  no  man  who  longs  for 
the  mastery  of  himself  through  the  help 
which  Christ  can  give  has  a  right  to  say  that 
he  really  wants  to  be  free  until  he  can  go  to 
this  degree  of  self-denial  in  hatred  of  his  own 
pleasure  and  in  determination  to  master  him- 
self through  an  antidote  of  suffering.  More- 
over it  seems  to  the  preacher  that  the  person 
who  thus  through  prayer  and  suffering  comes 


218         ITeu)  Concepts  of  £)15  Dogmas. 

back  to  mastery  of  himself  and  to  peace  with 
God,  doth  partake  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ 
in  the  redemption  of  humanity  as  no  world- 
ling can  who  curls  his  legs  under  his  chair, 
and  eaten  up  by  his  comforts  in  life,  sighs 
over  the  redemption  of  humanity  at  such 
tremendous  cost,  and  perchance  sheds  a 
few  briny  tears.  Such  a  life  of  self-denial 
doth  by  its  suffering  join  on  to  the  sufferings 
of  the  **  Son  of  man  who  was  the  Son  of  God." 
Every  one  of  us  needs  to  deny  ourselves  to 
the  quick,  that  we  may  enter  into  the  pas- 
sion of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 


IGNORANCE  IN  MORAL 
CHARACTER. 

*'  Let  us  hold  fast  our  confession.  For  we  have 
not  a  High  Priest  that  cannot  be  touched 
with  the  feeling  of  our  infirmities  ;  but  one 
that  hath  been  in  all  points  tempted  like  as 
ive  are,  yet  without  sin^ —  Heb.  /f.  :  75". 

HERE  stands  a  murderer  at  the  bar  ;  why 
a  craning  of  necks  to  see  him  ?  why  the 
moral  sentence  which  condemns  him  ?  except 
it  be  that  public  sentiment  scorns  him  for 
the  sensations  which  he  has  made  his  own, 
and  which  have  left  indelible  impress  on  his 
character.  Men  in  armies  are  enlisted  that 
they  may  kill  when  need  comes,  else  their 
service  were  a  sham.  But  we  are  told  that 
no  man  likes  to  say  he  killed  another,  and 
that  when  a  person  is  known  to  have  done 
such  an  act,  especially  in  a  wanton  manner, 
he  is  a  marked  person  among  his  fel- 
lows, and  is  disliked  and  shunned  by  them, 
because  of  knowledge  which  each  esteems  a 
blemish  upon  moral  character.  The  glory 
of  arms  is   not   in   the  death  one   deals,  so 

(219) 


220         Xlcvo  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

much  as  the  death  one  faces  ;  it  is  the  glo- 
rious unflinching  in  face  of  mortal  peril,  and 
not  an  envenomed  temper.  We  love  to  say 
our  brave  are  magnanimous  for  this  reason, 
and  to  lay  stress  upon  every  noblest  thing 
about  them.  We  would  have  our  soldier 
ignorant  of  much  of  what  dastards  boast ; 
even  courage  and  the  glories  of  valor  pale 
under  certain  circumstances.  We  expect, 
then,  knowledge  and  ignorance  to  be  side  by 
side,  and  reckon  the  strength  of  one  in  pro- 
portion with  the  lack  of  the  other. 

There  is  a  gamut  of  experience  here,  but 
no  half-tones  ;  each  note  must  be  clear,  with 
no  quaver  ;  it  is  not  a  study  of  harmonies, 
but  the  note  of  nature.  Art  has  nothing  to 
do  with  character  ;  it  is  be,  and  be  not  ;  act, 
and  refuse  to  act ;  it  is  quality,  and  absence 
of  quality. 

Christ,  we  say,  was  without  sin.  This  is 
more  than  a  Christian  dogma  ;  we  esteem  it 
a  Christian  fact.  It  is  one  of  the  things 
which  we  would  stand  for  against  all  comers, 
and  without  recourse.  But  if  Christ  was 
without  sin,  it  was  a  personality  which 
lacked  the  experience  of  that  sinning  which 
is  a  factor  in  human  life.  Yet  we  say  that 
Christ  knew  the  depth   of  human  weakness. 


^g,nova\\c^  in  literal  C^racter.        221 

and  lived  among  men  that  He  might  be  the 
perfect  Saviour  of  sinners.  These  two  facts 
thus  held  indicate  that  the  ignorance  of  the 
God-man's  spirit  and  His  appreciation  of 
human  need  are  not  contradictory  terms,  and 
that  there  was  nothing  essential  in  sin  as  sin 
to  His  earthly  ministry.  Moreover,  it  does 
not  seem  too  much  to  say  that  the  strength 
of  His  character,  the  uniqueness  and  beauty 
of  His  life,  depend  upon  that  ignorance  of 
the  Christ  in  large  degree.  Jupiter,  the  head 
of  the  Graeco-Roman  deities,  had  his  mar- 
riages, amours,  hates,  quarrels,  petulancies, 
and  personal  spites  ;  Jesus,  our  Christ,  had 
nothing  of  the  sort  in  His  life  on  earth  or  in 
His  heavenly  nature.  The  uniqueness,  there- 
fore, of  the  Christian  Deity  in  good  measure 
resides  in  His  ignorance.  But  the  ignorance 
of  Christ  was  more  than  absence  of  knowl- 
edge ;  it  is  really  equivalent  to  knowledge 
ignored,  innocency  prized.  Christ's  life  was 
not  one  which  led  Him  apart  from  transgres- 
sion ;  for  He  lived  on  an  earth  defiled,  con- 
taminated, and  corrupted  by  sin  ;  in  a  moral 
atmosphere  reeking  with  it,  in  a  human  so- 
ciety perverted  by  it,  with  a  human  heart 
open  as  no  other  animal  organism  was  to  it. 
But  with  these  surroundings,  the  blessed  Son 


222         ttert)  Concepts  of  £)I5  Dogmas. 

of  Mary  despised  it.  His  ignorance,  there- 
fore, was  an  ignoring  of  it  all.  In  other 
words,  it  was  an  ignorance  born  of  resolu- 
tion. On  this  hung  the  sinlessness  of  the 
Christ  during  His  earthly  ministry,  and  the 
loss  of  it  would  have  been  the  loss  of  His 
function  as  Saviour,  and  His  capacity  to 
execute  the  will  of  God  foreordained  in  the 
councils  of  heaven,  when  the  Lamb  without 
spot  was  slain  before  the  foundation  of  the 
world. 

To  the  question,  "What  is  the  difference 
between  Christ  and  Mohammed,  or  between 
Christ  and  Confucius,  or  between  Christ  and 
Buddha?"  we  give  answer  of  course.  That 
which  must  exist  between  man  and  the  God- 
man  ;  but  to  sum  it  up  in  an  analogy,  we  say 
it  is  the  difference  between  knowledge  of 
transgression   and   transgression   ignored. 

It  is  not  what  we  are  thrown  into  that 
determines  our  life.  Of  course  there  is  the 
circumstance  of  birth  and  environment  which 
determines  in  the  rough  careers  ;  but  that 
once  settled  and  a  life  in  a  civilized  land 
granted,  and  the  position  of  the  individual 
being  determined  so  far  as  the  theater  of 
events  is  concerned,  the  place  of  the  person 
amid  his  surroundings  will  be  fixed  by  what 


3$norance  in  ^Horal  Cl?aracter.        223 


he  ignores  in  the  life  which  he  leads.  That 
editor  who  was  congratulated  upon  the  high 
character  which  his  paper  maintained,  said 
in  reply  that  it  was  not  so  much  what  he 
printed  as  what  he  refused  to  print,  that  had 
made  his  paper  what  it  was.  This  shows 
the  course  of  our  argument.  So  in  our  lives  ; 
what  we  avoid  will  accurately  determine  our 
life,  and  the  force  of  virtuous  living  consid- 
ered as  output  from  the  motive  of  the  human 
heart  resides  in  what  we  will  not  do.  For 
doing,  freely  assented  to,  is  a  pleasure,  and 
what  we  do  for  our  own  sake  is  not  that  thing 
which  gives  determinative  force  to  careers. 
The  real  virtue  of  living  must  arise  from  what 
we  do  that  is  hard  and  disagreeable,  because 
it  is  our  duty,  which  we  are  not  often  called 
upon  to  perform,  and  in  abstaining  from  doing 
what  we  know  to  be  wrong,  which  is  a  con- 
stant quantity  in  our  living. 

The  book-makers  on  our  racing  tracks  are 
but  the  machinery  of  a  large  element  in  the 
life  of  our  time,  which  finds  the  sensations  of 
gambling,  accentuated  by  the  uncertainties 
and  struggles  of  the  racing  turf,  of  greatest 
possible  pleasure.  Aside  from  those  who  fol- 
low the  turf,  for  the  money  there  is  in  it,  is  a 
large  class  of  persons  who  follow  it  for  pleas- 


224         Hem  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

ure.  Much  depends  upon  horse  and  man,  the 
position  assigned,  the  accidents,  the  skill  of 
the  driver,  the  condition  of  the  beast.  And 
when  the  interest,  which  each  person  must 
feel  when  he  is  only  an  observer,  is  heightened 
by  the  stake  in  money  which  he  puts  up, 
there  results  a  full  tide  of  excited  enthusi- 
asm, with  its  alternation  of  hopes  and  fears, 
which  is  a  pleasurable  sensation,  attempts 
to  realize  which  are  known  as  the  gambling 
mania.  But  I  noticed  in  Prof  Waldstein's 
article,  "  The  Finding  of  the  Tomb  of  Aris- 
totle," the  following  statement  apropos  his 
work  last  year  in  Eretria :  *' However  full 
of  moments  of  thrilling  excitement  —  mo- 
ments that  in  their  intensity  have  no  equal 
in  any  other  department  of  scientific  work 
or  sport  —  the  practice  of  excavation  may 
be,  there  are  days  and  even  weeks  of  dis- 
couraging ill  success,  which  sorely  try  the 
patience  of  even  the  most  sanguine  and 
persevering."  That  is  to  say,  there  is  an 
excited  enthusiasm  in  archaeology  which  is 
comparable  with  similar  sensations  on  the 
turf,  so  that  a  man  may  stand  as  breathless 
watching  the  digging  out  of  a  grave  2000 
years  old,  as  following  the  plunges  of  the  fa- 
vorite horse  on  which  he  has  staked  a  purse. 


39norance  in  21Toral  (£f?aractcr.         225 

It  is  obvious  that  the  excitements  of  the 
turf  are  poor  preparations  for  the  business 
of  living.  He  who  craves  sensations  of  this 
sort,  and  satisfying  himself  therewith  is  con- 
tent, will  not  usually  be  turned  to  the  enthu- 
siasms of  His  calling  and  to  the  sensations 
of  its  triumphs.  But  says  some  one,  "You 
are  confusing  business  and  pleasure."  That 
may  be,  but  the  success  of  each  life  will  after 
all  depend  upon  its  pleasures.  There  is  hardly 
a  business  man  but  would  prefer  a  young 
person  in  his  employ  should  be  ignorant 
of  the  ways  of  the  course,  of  the  slang  of  the 
jockey,  and  the  morals  of  the  plunger.  Moral 
health  seems  to  depend  upon  decisions  in 
such  questions.  The  good  man  is  not  he 
that  knoweth  everything  that  the  world 
knoweth,  but  rather  he  who  ignores  much 
which  that  worldling  prizeth. 

This  is  the  reason  why  our  homes  are  so 
blest  in  all  their  relations  of  life  ;  namely, 
because  there  is  one  place  in  the  world 
where  what  is  worst  is  shut  out  and  where 
souls  may  live  in  ignorance  of  the  vice,  sin, 
misery,  and  wickedness  of  earth.  This  ex- 
plains why  it  is  that  the  loss  of  a  good  home 
to  which  the  memory  may  turn,  is  like  the 
misery  of  the  damned.  Parents  watch  their 
15 


226         txetr>  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

children  with  anxiety  and  care  as  they  pass 
from  youth  to  manhood,  solicitous  that  they 
may  on  the  one  hand  be  ignorant  of  the 
worst  that  is  in  the  world,  and  on  the  other, 
that,  thrown  in  contact  with  the  evil  of  the 
world,  they  may  ignore  it,  and  keep  their 
hearts  and  minds  in  the  love  of  God.  For 
to  know  not  evil  is  not  enough,  but  ignorant ; 
to  ignore  it,  and  to  refuse  its  impression  on 
the  soul,  this  is  the  way  to  walk  with  those 
who  make  this  life  a  pilgrimage,  and  not  a 
fatality,  and  whose  lips  are  laden  with  the 
songs  of  heavenly  love. 

Here  comes  in  a  criticism  of  the  modern 
college.  Three  or  four  hundred  men  are 
severed  from  the  restraints  of  home,  and,  in- 
cited by  the  sociability  of  friendship  to  mild 
dissipations,  are  left  to  find  out  what  the 
world  is.  There  results  a  kind  of  student 
ruffianism,  with  its  drinking  bouts,  its  fires  at 
night  on  the  campus,  its  gambling  in  a  small 
way,  and  the  formation  of  a  convivial  set 
often  prominent  at  the  first  few  reunions  after 
graduation.  Then,  too,  there  is  that  queer 
thing  known  as  college  sentiment,  which 
often  interferes  with  the  moral  law,  such  as 
cheating  through  examinations  or  stealing 
small  things  as    mementoes,    whether    it    be 


33norance  in  IHoral  (£I?aracter.         227 

sign  boards,  or  conductor's  lanterns,  or  hotel 
ink-stands,  or  curtain-fixtures,  or  what  not. 
Now  the  preacher  is  free  to  say  that  he  ap- 
preciates the  advantages  and  uses  of  an  educa- 
tion, but  why  is  it  necessary  to  get  it  in  any 
such  way  ?  College  men  are  peculiarly  in- 
fluenced by  this  idea  of  seeing  what  is  in 
the  world.  It  is  a  mistake.  Knowledge  is 
power,  that  is,  of  books  and  facts  and  men, 
not  knowledge  of  vice  and  of  the  basest  dissi- 
pations. I  would  pray  God  to  bring  into  my 
life  no  new  factors  of  sin  and  temptation, 
that  my  knowledge  may  not  be  so  freighted 
with  evil  that  knowledge  itself  will  become  a 
doubtful  boon. 

Say  :  shall  a  man  choose  his  house  or  his 
horse  or  his  friend,  and  by  that  act  of  choice  in 
each  instance  refuse  at  a  glance  one  or  more 
which  he  does  not  want,  but  in  moral  things 
wallow  through  the  mire  of  the  world's 
wickedness  in  order  to  know  what  he  does 
not  desire  ?  It  would  be  as  reasonable  to  go 
through  filthy  tenements  when  looking  for  a 
home,  or  to  ride  after  spavined  horses  and 
have  one  or  two  die  of  heaves  on  the  street, 
when  one  wanted  a  family  horse,  as  to  wade 
through  the  abysmal  swinishness  of  some 
vicious  men  to  find  out  whether  you  desire 


228         Heu?  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

them  for  boon  companions,  or  to  harbor  every 
wicked  thought  to  see  whether  that  is  the 
kind  you  will  foster.  I  fear  that  if  we 
should  spend  our  time  in  the  squalor  of  the 
wretched  homes  of  the  poor,  we  should  not 
love  the  green  grass.  This  is  the  reason  that 
you  drive  your  carriage  through  the  best 
streets  of  the  city.  That  is  the  reason  why 
philanthropy  is  such  a  terrible  thing  to  un- 
dertake,—  because  the  odor  of  filth  does  not 
leave  you  when  you  come  to  your  own  table  ; 
and  the  grime  of  the  place  some  way,  linger- 
ing on  your  eyeballs,  blurs  the  beauty  of  the 
sunshine,  so  that  only  as  men  love  good  will 
they  leave  heights  and  go  down  among  the 
poor.  I  fear,  too,  that  if  you  study  defective 
horses,  every  horse  will  be  alike  to  you,  and 
you  will  lose  your  concept  of  a  perfect  horse. 
So  in  the  domain  of  holiness  and  morals  ; 
contaminate  yourself  by  knowing  what  sin 
is  before  you  know  holiness  in  its  best  estate, 
and  you  cannot  know  that  holiness  when 
you  meet  it  face  to  face.  For  sin  is  like  the 
basilisk  of  mythology,  which  poisons  a  man 
by  its  breath,  if  perchance  he  shall  come  so 
near.  The  spotlessness  of  Mary's  Son  is  the 
spotlessness  for  humanity.  Therefore  know 
as  little  of  the  bad  as  you  can  ;  poison  not  in- 


'^qnovancz  in  Ittoral  (£f?aracter.        229 

telligence  by  transgression.  Surround  thy- 
self with  the  good  ;  ennoble  and  elevate  thy 
thoughts.  Seek  not  multiplicity  of  sensations  ; 
choose  thy  lot.  It  were  better  that  the  eye 
should  be  burned  out  by  the  strategy  of  an 
enemy,  than  with  two  eyes  to  be  compelled  to 
see  all  the  world's  misery,  the  full  depths  of  its 
shame,  the  awfulness  of  its  crime.  For  ears 
that  are  closed  hear  not  the  whisperings  of 
the  tempter  ;  and  though  we  pity  the  deaf  be- 
cause they  do  not  hear  at  all,  yet  all  is  not 
lost,  and  there  is  contentment  in  looking  at 
the  stars  all  the  deeper  and  sweeter  if  one 
does  not  hear  the  dog  baying  at  the  moon. 
It  will  be  the  noblest  of  lives  when  one  can 
say,  "  Innocence  passed  me,  and  I  prepared 
its  way.  Goodness  was  my  guest,  and  I  sent 
him  forth  unsullied.  Love  I  knew,  and  re- 
turned unselfishly.  Loathsome  Envy,  hate- 
ful Untruth,  gluttonous  Appetite,  snarling 
Malice  I  saw,  but  passed  by." 

There  is  a  bale  of  vices  some  men  carry  on 
their  backs  to  the  very  edge  of  the  grave. 
They  represent  their  cast-off  vices,  which 
have  served  them  in  their  day,  and  which 
they  love.  They  hope  the  same  grave  will 
cover  them  both.  But  Innocency  has  no  lug- 
gage to   weight  her    down.     There    are    no 


230         Hem  Concepts  of  £^I6  Pocstnas. 

scales  on  her  eyes  ;  she  can  view  the  heavenly 
gates,  and  bear  the  rays  of  celestial  light. 
No  grave  is  welcome  to  her  spirit  ;  the  light 
of  life  is  in  her  azure  eyes,  and  the  aureole  of 
life  is  about  her  head. 


THE  PATIENCE  OF  CHRIST. 

^^  Likewise  also  the  chief  priests  mocking  Him 
with  the  scribes  and  elders  said.  He  saved 
others,  Himself  He  cannot  save.'' — Matt. 
27  :  41,  42. 

THE  last  part  of  the  collect  for  the  Sunday 
next  before  Easter  reads,  '' Mercifully 
grant  that  we  may  both  follow  the  example 
of  His  patience,  and  also  be  made  partakers 
of  His  resurrection,  through  the  same  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord."  Apprehension  and  recog- 
nition of  the  patience  of  our  Lord  breathes 
through,  and  finds  admirable  statement  in,  our 
text.  Patience  is  not  resignation  ;  we  are  re- 
signed in  submission  to  another  because  it  is 
his  will  ;  we  are  patient  with  our  fate  because  it 
is  our  will.  Christ  was  resigned,  and  showed 
it  in  Gethsemane  ;  Christ  was  patient,  and 
showed  it  all  through  passion  week  in  His  mar- 
velous self-control.  We  magnify  and  try  to  ap- 
preciate this  day  the  patience  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Patience  could  overleap  its  bounds,  but  will 
not.  Resignation  sits  with  folded  hands  and 
awaits  death.  It  is  a  blessed  sight,  that  of 
resignation  when  the  life  nears  its  close,  and 

(231) 


232         View  doncepts  of  £)16  Dogmas. 

the  task  is  ended.  How  sweet  to  see  age 
thus  sit  with  folded  hands,  submissive,  and 
giving  to  every  beholder  the  sense  of  its  own 
quietude  !  But  patience  suffers  that  it  may- 
achieve  ;  the  patient  persevere.  This  is  the 
most  glorious  trait  of  men  of  Anglo-Saxon 
blood. 

In  the  great  storm  at  Samoa,  the  English 
steamer  "  Calliope,"  to  escape  from  the  harbor 
must  needs  pass  between  the  American  ship 
"Trenton"  and  the  reef  upon  which  she  was 
drifting.  Four  hundred  stalwart  American 
seamen  face  to  face  with  death,  witnessing 
the  skillful  seamanship  of  Captain  Kane  and 
the  courage  of  the  effort,  gave  three  mighty 
cheers  for  the  English  vessel.  A  London 
paper  said  it  was  '*  the  expression  of  an 
immortal  courage.  It  was  distressed  man- 
hood greeting  ^  triumphant  manhood,  the 
doomed  saluting  the  saved."  Yes,  and  it 
was  one  thing  more,  the  tribute  of  patience 
to  patience,  of  patience  in  defeat  saluting 
patience  in  victory.  It  is  not  strange,  there- 
fore, that  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  should  be 
most  impressed  with  the  patience  of  Christ. 
We  call  it  His  .manliness.  It  was  patience 
under  persecution  which  led  our  fathers  into 
the    wilderness,    forsaking    the    comforts   of 


CI}c  patience  of  Cl?nst.  233 


civilization  ;  it  explains  why  the  plantation 
at  Jamestown  failed,  while  the  plantation  at 
Plymouth  lived. 

I  notice  that  the  patience  of  Christ  was  of 
the  most  elevated  type.  In  human  life  there 
are  two  consummate  acts  of  destiny,  the  en- 
vironment into  which  we  are  born,  and  the 
hour  and  circumstances  of  our  death.  At 
the  birth  of  Christ  we  do  not  think  of  the 
Godhead  as  hushed  at  the  instant  of  the  in- 
carnation, but  rather  of  an  awestruck  earth 
receiving  the  Prince  of  Peace.  On  the  other 
hand,  we  can  but  believe  that  at  the  cruci- 
fixion, heaven  and  its  hosts  hung  upon  the 
minute  when  the  Son  of  God  entered  upon 
His  death  agony.  Could  the  Father  witness 
unmoved  the  Son's  acceptance  of  the  full 
measure  of  His  humanity,  even  the  death  of 
the  body  ?  And  if  the  Father  lost  the  equi- 
poise of  the  eternities  in  those  moments 
when  the  sufferer  said,  "  I  thirst,"  or  when 
He  forgave  the  impenitent  thief,  or  when  He 
cried  with  a  loud  voice,  ''  My  God,  my  God, 
why  hast  Thou  forsaken  me  ? "  or  when  with 
the  words,  '*  Father,  into  Thy  hands  I  com- 
mend my  spirit,"  He  gave  up  the  Ghost,  and 
the  veil  of  the  temple  was  rent  in  twain  ; 
must  we  not  believe  that  the   shadow  cast 


234         Hert?  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

by  His  destiny  of  death,  .ever  drawing  a  little 
nearer,  even  as  the  shadow  of  the  dial  passes 
lower  and  lower  while  the  sun  dips  in  the  west 
and  the  night  is  at  hand,  was  ever  upon  His 
spirit,  and  deepened  as  the  hour  was  come  ? 
He  foreknew  His  coming,  if  scripture  is  to 
be  believed,  and  he  came  prepared  for  the 
body  ;  but  so  do   we   all. 

'•Our  birth  is  but  a  sleep  and  a  forgetting  ; 

The  soul  that  rises  with  us,   our  life's   star, 
Hath  had  elsewhere  its  setting, 
And  Cometh  from  afar  : 

Not  in  entire  forgetfulness, 

And  not  in  utter  nakedness  ; 
But  trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  come 

From  God,  who  is  our  home." 

On  the  other  hand,  Christ  knew  that  He 
must  die,  so  do  you  ;  and  Christ  went  forward 
with  somewhat  of  shrinking,  so  do  we  ;  and 
the  life  was  stricken  out  of  Him,  even  as  it 
must  be  out  of  us.  As  He  left  behind  the 
glory  of  His  patience  as  a  legacy  to  human 
kind  for  all  ages,  so  let  us  be  possessed  of  the 
same  self-constancy,  that  we  may  illustrate 
glorious  examples  of  patience  after  the  same 
blessed  type  ;  for  the  fruit   of  Jesus'   life   was 


Cf?e  patience  of  C!}rtst.  235 

not  three  tours  amid  two  hundred  village 
towns  of  Galilee,  or  His  three  passovers  at 
Jerusalem,  or  everything  He  did  from  the 
manger  to  the  grave  ;  but  the  true  fruitage  of 
His  life  was  His  passion  of  patience,  the 
master-motive  of  His  career,  which  might 
have  been  seen  had  we  been  there  in  every 
nervous  step  from  the  judgment  hall  of 
Pontius  Pilate  to  Mount  Calvary,  and  which 
culminated  in  the  death-agony.  The  pa- 
tience of  Jesus  must  have  been  solely  in  view 
of  His  death.  He  knew  His  future,  for  He 
prophesied  concerning  it,  both  the  resurrec- 
tion and  the  ascension,  including  His  office  of 
intercession.  His  ultimate  triumph  was  a 
solace  for  His  present  humiliation.  Heaven 
to  Him  was  like  heaven  for  us,  a  present  solace 
because  it  held  hopes  of  future  comfort.  As 
the  soldiers  of  the  late  war  bore  the  fatiguing 
march  under  the  hot  Southern  sun,  or  mined 
and  counter-mined  at  seiges,  delved  in  breast- 
works, charged  into  craters,  fought  with  the 
ferocity  of  beasts,  and  at  some  news  of  great 
victory  won,  transported,  broke  into  cheers 
and  disorderly  enthusiasm,  not  because  they 
were  resigned,  but  because  they  were  patient 
in  view  of  the  promised  peace  toward  which 


236         Hen?  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

they  were  struggling  and  for  which  they  were 
pining,  so  we  look  forward,  buoyed  by  the 
patience  of  hope. 

We  love  to  think  of  ourselves  as  sol- 
diers of  the  cross,  for  whom  the  never-dying 
laurels  of  victory  are  already  won,  and  great 
and  glorious  blessings  of  peace  are  assured. 
For  this  reason  we  seize  most  eagerly  the 
promises  of  the  Master  concerning  the  bless- 
edness of  the  future  life.  The  promises, 
however,  cannot  do  away  with  the  sharp- 
ness of  death.  That  the  promises  are  an 
assistance  to  the  sick,  is  undoubted,  for  they 
fill  the  mind  where  otherwise  there  would 
be  a  dull  monotony  of  pain.  That  the  Holy 
Ghost  sustains  the  dying,  and  often  in  in- 
stances of  great  and  true  faith  fills  them  in 
the  death  struggle  with  the  ravishment 
of  hope  prematurely  fulfilled,  is  undoubted 
in  the  mind  of  the  preacher,  but  death  is 
death  ;  the  grave  must  have  mastery  over 
the  flesh. 

A  maxim  of  the  old  Stoics  runs  :  "Out  of 
the  universe  from  the  beginning  everything 
which  happens  has  been  apportioned  and 
spun  out  to  thee  ; "  and  again,  **  Whatever 
may  happen  to  thee,  it  was  prepared  for  thee 
from    all    eternity ;    and    the    entwining    of 


^t?e  patience  of  (£l?rt5t.  237 

causes  was  from  all  eternity  spinning  the 
thread  of  thy  being,  and  of  that  which  is 
incident  to  it."  But  this  is  not  the  Christian 
conception  of  life  ;  we  believe  indeed  that 
God's  plans  for  us  begin  from  the  past  ages 
of  eternity,  but  destiny  in  the  sense  of  un- 
controllable and  uncontrolled  fate  is  evi- 
denced in  only  two  things,  our  birth  and  our 
death.  We  are  compelled  to  assume  the 
inevitable  ;  for  one  to  say  that  he  hates  his 
life  is  nothing  strange,  but  he  must  bear  it. 
Now  while  death  is  under  control  in  the 
sense  that  we  may  take  our  own  lives,  this 
is  so  abnormal  an  experience  that  for  all 
practical  purposes  we  may  assume  all  desire 
to  live.  The  man  desires  to  live,  but  he  is 
fated  to  perish,  and  even  the  suicide  can- 
not escape  from  life  save  by  the  doorways 
of  death.  This  inevitable  dissolution  of  the 
body,  the  ultimate  enemy  alike  of  wealth, 
ambition,  power,  poverty,  need,  and  sin,  was 
the  heritage  of  Jesus  from  His  humanity. 

When  we  are  sick,  we  send  for  the  physi- 
cian, and  tax  all  his  resources  on  our  behalf; 
we  summon  up  the  scattered  forces  of  the 
will,  and  make  ourselves  ready  for  a  great 
stand  ;  we  turn  to  God,  the  acknowledged 
arbiter  of  our  destiny,  and  strive  to  carry  the 


238         Xlcw  doncepts  of  £)16  Dogmas. 

citadel  of  heaven  by  the  storm  of  our  peti- 
tions beating  against  its  walls.  And  this  or 
that  may  avail  for  the  nonce  ;  but  it  is  only 
a  respite,  we  must  again  hear  the  beatings 
of  the  wings  of  the  angel  of  death.  Grant 
could  win  at  Appomattox,  but  he  could  not 
win  against  his  last  great  enemy  in  the  cot- 
tage at  Mount  M'Gregor.  But  there  are 
many  instances  which  seem  to  indicate  that 
a  fixed  fate  is  certain  to  us.  The  precau- 
tions of  cowardice  often  bring  the  victim  but 
nearer  to  death.  The  hero  of  thirty  battles, 
just  passed  through,  dies  in  his  bed.  Emin 
Pasha,  rescued  by  Stanley  after  years  of 
isolation  in  the  Equatorial  Provinces  of  Af- 
rica, at  an  expense  to  the  British  govern- 
ment of  $150,000,  falls  from  a  balcony  at 
Bagamoyo  at  the  banquet  of  his  friends,  and 
nearly  perishes.  •  Gen.  Dan.  E.  Sickles,  to- 
day prominent  in  New  York  politics,  I  re- 
member well  as  he  came  home  from  the  war, 
having  lost  a  leg  in  the  cause,  and  my  youth- 
ful blood  thrilled  to  hear  of  his  hairbreadth 
escapes,  of  the  horses  shot  from  under  him, 
and  his  wounds  at  Gettysburg.  *' A  thou- 
sand shall  fall  at  thy  side,  and  ten  thousand 
at  thy  right  hand,  but  it  shall  not  come  nigh 
thee." 


C^e  Patience  of  (£t?rtst.  239 


As  therefore  this  thing  is  so  often  beyond 
us  and  a  matter  of  God's  decree,  it  surely 
behooveth  us  to  meet  it  without  fear  ;  but 
then  who  can  ?  No  human  being  that  loves 
life  and  many  days  can  honestly  say  he  does 
not  fear  to  die.  Each  would  ask,  if  it  were 
imminent,  a  few  moments  for  preparation, 
and  those  few  minutes  would  be  the  best  of 
our  lives ;  each  least  bit  of  devotion  and 
goodness  in  us  would  rise  to  the  surface  and 
be  skimmed. 

A  just  appreciation  of  Christ's  patience  can 
only  be  had  when  we  consider  that  He  knew 
the  end  from  the  beginning,  and  did  not 
have  the  resource  of  uncertainty  which  is 
the  privilege  of  us  all.  He  knew  His  time, 
and  during  passion  week  stood  within  its 
shadow.  He  knew  that  nothing  could  save 
Him.  **  The  Son  of  man  must  suffer  many 
things  at  the  hands  of  the  elders,  and  on  the 
third  day  be  raised  from  the  dead."  Like  a 
criminal  under  sentence  of  death  He  could 
say,  '*  I  have  five  days  to  live,  or  four  days 
to  live,  or  three,"  and  witness  the  ever-nar- 
rowing marge  of  time  this  side  eternity,  with 
no  buffer  of  uncertainty  to  break  its  force. 
Our  stand  against  death  is  bad  enough,  but 
His  was  worse  ;  alone  He  stood  with  the  cer- 


240         Hetr>  Concepts  of  £>lb  Dogmas. 

tainty  of  His  destiny.  Paul  and  his  chain  are 
but  insignificant  compared  with  Christ  and 
His  cross.  No  man  on  a  forlorn  hope  ever 
bore  his  perilous  mission  half  so  jauntily  as 
He  with  His  eye  illumined  by  the  hope  set 
before  Him,  in  order  that  He  might  save. 

A  newspaper  criticism  of  a  painting  by 
Mr.  Alexander  Pope  says:  **  The  subject  is 
chosen  from  Bulwer's  scene  in  the  '  Last 
Days  of  Pompeii/  when  Glaucus  is  about  to 
confront  the  lion  in  the  arena,  and  when 
premonitions  of  the  grand  disturbance  of  nat- 
ure make  the  beast  indifferent  to  the  lesser 
conflict  prepared  for  the  sport  of  the  popu- 
lace. The  chief  interest  of  the  painting  very 
properly  centers  upon  the  lion,  since  it  was  the 
instinct  of  the  noble  beast  which  changed  the 
plot  of  the  story,  and  which  acted  as  a  warn- 
ing to  the  great, throng,  intimating  how  small 
were  men's  jealousies  and  passions  before 
the  tremendous  force  which  hurled  the  city 
unto  destruction.  Mr.  Pope  has  endowed^ 
the  lion  with  a  grand  indifference  to  the  little 
part  which  he  was  set  to  play  with  Glaucus. 
Instead  of  facing  his  opponent,  he  has  turned 
to  look  up  toward  the  flame  and  smoke  just 
issuing  from  the  mountain  ;  and  his  action  is 
so  vivid  that,  although  the  mountain  is  not 


Cl?e  patience  of  (£I?nst  241 

seen  in  the  painting,  the  spectator  is  aware  of 
a  serious  disturbance  upon  the  nature  of  the 
apprehensive  beast.  His  head  is  raised,  his 
front  paw  is  not  placed  as  firmly  as  usual,  and 
his  whole  attitude  expresses  timidity  without 
a  loss  of  nobility  and  grandeur." 

So  all  through  passion  week  the  Christ 
amidst  the  turmoil  faced  the  great  event  to 
come,  not  with  timid  foot,  but  with  a  mien  so 
fraught  with  the  consciousness  of  destiny 
soon  to  be  fulfilled,  that  His  attitude  of  mind 
and  heart  obscured  all  else.  What  is  Annas, 
or  Caiaphas,  or  Pontius  Pilate,  or  Mary  and 
Peter  and  James,  the  Roman  centurion,  or  the 
howling  mob  ? 

"Almighty  and  everlasting  God,  who,  of 
Thy  tender  love  toward  mankind,  hast  sent 
Thy  Son,  our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  to  take  upon 
Him  our  flesh,  and  to  suffer  death  upon  the 
cross  that  all  mankind  should  follow  the  ex- 
ample of  His  great  humility  ;  mercifully  grant, 
that  we  may  both  follow  the  example  of  His 
patience,  and  also  be  made  partakers  of  His 
resurrection  ;  through  the  same  Jesus  Christ 
our  Lord.     Amen." 


i6 


THE  BASIS  OF  PRAYER. 

*'  Ye  worship  that  which  ye  know  not  :  we  wor- 
ship that  which  we  know.''''  —  yohn  4  :  22. 

TO  worship  in  the  Christian  sense  is  to  per- 
form acts  of  adoration  ;  while  to  adore  is, 
first,  to  pay  special  and  marked  honors  to 
God,  and  second,  to  regard  Him  with  the  ut- 
most esteem,  affection,  and  respect.  Heathen 
men  lay  less  stress  upon  love  than  do  Chris- 
tians, and  found  their  worship  upon  power 
and  the  fear  of  power.  We  must  recognize 
that  comprehension  of  power  is  essential  to 
adoration,  but  that  it  is  not  the  only  attribute 
necessary  thereto.  Who  could  worship  an 
impotent  God  }  It  would  be  possible  to  love 
God  as  the  lover  adores  his  fiancee  —  sim- 
ply as  another  person  of  agreeable  quali- 
ties, and  perchance  with  a  hearty  sense  of 
comradeship. 

That,  however,  is  not  worship  ;  God  in  such 
circumstances  is  not  above  patronage.  That 
Christian  familiarity  in  prayer,  momentarily 
forgetful  of  its  disparity  with  the  Infinite,  often 
drops  into  descriptions  of  the  Deity,  is  due  to 
(242) 


^{?e  Basis  of  prayer.  243 

this  fact,  as  if  God  did  not  know  Himself. 
Again  it  often  describes  its  own  case  with 
minuteness,  as  if  the  Godhead  could  not  see 
all  the  thoughts  and  purposes  of  the  heart 
without  a  microscope.  And  too  often  the  in- 
tellect exhausts  itself  in  a  magnificent  argu- 
ment, as  if  to  an  unwilling  mind,  and  ends 
with  an  eloquent  peroration  both  ecstatic  and 
bewildering.  From  birth  to  death.  Am  I  not 
a  dependent  being.''  Can  I  breathe  without 
His  sustenance .?  Can  I  live  without  His 
care  ?  Can  I  die  except  as  He  hath  ordained  ? 
With  such  constant  dependence  upon  Him, 
man  is  ill-prepared,  unless  his  eyes  are 
closed  to  his  real  situation  in  God's  world,  to 
assume  that  he  is  sufficient  unto  himself  in  all 
things.  "  The  avalanche  is  starting ;  put 
down  your  staves  through  the  snow-bank, 
hold  for  your  lives  !  "  the  guide  may  shout 
back  to  Alpine  climbers  below  him  ;  and 
with  an  involuntary  terror  each  one  clenches 
his  teeth  and  strikes  the  iron  deeper.  The 
next  day,  safe  in  his  hospice,  each  recounts 
the  dangers  passed  through  and  pathetically 
describes  the  instant  when  the  soul  was  be- 
leagured  by  terrors.  And  shall  the  moral 
nature  thus  wince  under  the  external  fact  of 
a  higher  law,   and  be  unmoved  if  man  shall 


244         Xlcw  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

know  that  God  to  whom  the  avalanche  is  no 
more  than  a  snowball  which  boys  have  rolled 
in  the  damp  snows  to  the  foot  of  the  hill,  is 
moving  against  him,  holding  him  reprobate 
and  offensive  ? 

Suppose  a  man  from  another  planet,  or  a 
holy  angel  of  God  from  heaven,  should  come 
to  earth  and  learn  of  men  ?  In  Africa,  on  the 
grass  lands  about  the  great  lakes,  he  might 
find  the  Wahuma  an  Ethiopian  or  Abyssinian 
stock,  and  among  their  varied  pursuits  of 
peace  and  war  he  would  notice  an  egg  or 
banana  or  kid  skin  placed  at  the  door  of  a 
miniature  temple  always  found  at  the  en- 
trance of  the  group  of  family  huts  which  are 
surrounded  by  a  wattled  fence.  "Then,  too, 
every  person,"  says  Henry  M.  Stanley,  ''wears 
a  ch:arm  around  the  neck,  or  arm,  or  waist  ;" 
the  one  being  a  temple  for  the  abode  of  a 
dread  deity,  the  other  a  protection  from  su- 
perhuman personalities  who  otherwise  might 
maim,  disease,  or  destroy.  Or  suppose  the 
foot  should  first  tread  on  Indian  soil,  there 
would  be  found  altars  before  shrines  in  which 
the  gods  do  dwell,  altars  of  sacrifice  unto  su- 
pernatural spirits  who  are  sometimes  given 
image  within  in  such  grotesque  form  as  shall 
shadow  forth  his  unusual  and  hence  god-like 


Cf^e  Basts  of  Prayer.  245 

qualities.  "Every  town  in  the  most  relig- 
ious province  of  India"  is  filled  with  temples, 
and  every  hamlet  has  its  shrine.  The  na- 
tional reverence  of  the  Hindus  for  holy  places 
has  been  for  ages  concentrated  on  "the  city 
of  Puri,  sacred  to  Vishnu,  the  lord  of  the 
world."  The  same  is  true  of  all  antiquity. 
Hardly  a  race  of  men  is  to  be  found  that 
does  not  show  a  worshipful  spirit  based  upon 
consciousness  of  dependence. 

From  man's  situation  he  argues  with  only 
such  revelation  as  is  given  him  in  a  state  of 
nature,  that  there  is  a  source  of  life  and 
power  in  all  the  earth  about  him.  To  assist 
in  making  the  existence  of  his  deity  real 
he  fashions  the  idol,  and  at  length  cannot 
see  why  the  wood  or  stone  which  he  has 
placed  in  the  shrine  is  not  the  vehicle  of  the 
God  who  was  worshiped  in  the  shrine  before 
the  idol  was  fashioned,  and  who,  becoming 
identified  with  the  place,  he  thinks  must  be 
identified  with  the  visible  token  of  him  fash- 
ioned as  best  the  skillful  hands  of  men  about 
can  create. 

You  see  the  degrees  of  approach  to  a  con- 
summate idolatry.  God  the  all-powerful  is 
in  the  world,  its  first  cause  and  sustainer, 
a  certain  portion   of  which,   His  handiwork, 


246         HetP  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas, 

may  be  set  aside  to  His  worship.  On  this  we 
will  build  a  temple.  As  this  is  the  place  of 
prayer  and  sacrifice,  it  becomes  holy  ;  next 
the  deity  identified  with  the  spot  comes  to 
be  regarded  as  the  deity  on  the  spot  ;  then 
the  idol  in  the  temple  becomes  the  object 
of  the  sacrifice  without  the  temple,  and  god 
and  idol  are  one  to  remotest  generations. 
But  behind  it  all  and  fundamental  thereto 
is  the  consciousness  of  dependence  on  the 
part  of  the  creature. 

There  are  many  reasons  why  you  and  I  are 
conscious  of  mystery  behind  life  and  nature 
due  to  the  teachings  of  science,  which  has  be- 
come a  part  of  common  knowledge  ;  but  we 
are  presenting  those  feelings  common  to 
human  nature,  which  the  savage  recognizes 
in  the  bloody  rites  of  his  heathen  ritual,  and 
which  a  heritage  of  our  humanity  are  accentu- 
ated by  the  reflective  powers  of  the  intellect 
using  the  facts  of  our  nineteenth  century  en- 
dowment of  knowledge.  I  think  it  is  for  this 
reason  that  men  pray :  they  can  get  along 
without  prayer,  but  man  was  made  to  pray, 
and  prays  as  naturally  as  he  breathes.  Sticks 
and  stones  cannot  pray,  the  brute  beasts  do 
not  pray  ;  therefore  how  excellent  is  our  her- 
itage.    It  is  as  a  testimony  to  this  native  en- 


CE?e  Basts  of  prayer.  247 

dowment  we  quote  the  Rig  Veda,  the  psalms 
of  the  Indian  branch  of  our  Aryan  stock. 
"  Whosoever  scoffs  at  the  prayer  which  we 
have  made,  may  hot  plagues  come  upon  him, 
may  the  sky  burn  up  that  hater  of  Brahmans." 
Three  births  the  Indian  Aryans  taught, — 
the  birth  into  the  world,  the  regeneration 
consequent  upon  religious  duties,  and  the 
translation  to  the  kingdom  above  when  fire 
setting  free  the  spirit,  the  body  returned  to 
the  earth  whence  it  had  been  derived.  Then 
the  friends  standing  around  recited  the  words 
of  the  ritual,  ''  As  for  his  unborn  part,  do 
Thou,  Lord,  quicken  it  with  Thy  heat ;  let 
Thy  flame  and  Thy  brightness  quicken  it ; 
convey  it  to  the  world  of  the  righteous." 

There  is  something  infinitely  touching 
about  a  person  in  prayer.  The  worship  of 
orientals  was  ordinarily  expressed  by  kneel- 
ing and  prostrating  one's  self  before  God. 
It  must  be  an  affecting  sight  when  the  Mus- 
sulman unrolls  his  carpet,  faces  toward  the 
East,  and  prostrates  himself  before  the  Su- 
preme. I  noticed  in  the  Century  for  No- 
vember, 1890,  a  picture  of  a  Buddhist  priest 
already  sixteen  hundred  miles  on  his  journey, 
with  eleven  hundred  more  to  cover  before  he 
should  reach  Lh'asa  ;   every  two  steps  of  the 


248         Xlcw  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

way  he  set  down  the  miniature  altar,  with  its 
nosegays  at  either  end,  and  its  three  burning 
joss  sticks,  and  prostrating  in  the  supposed 
direction  of  Lh'asa,  did  reverence  to  God, 
not  knowing,  perchance,  like  the  Samaritan, 
whom  he  worshiped,  yet  his  act  of  devotion 
is  a  silent  testimony  of  the  creature's  sensi- 
bility of  his  dependence  upon  a  higher  power. 
This  is  man  bowing  down  before  God.  If  I 
should  see  him  thus  cheerfully  devout,  I 
should  feel  like  kneeling  with  him  ;  trusting 
that  I  prayed  more  intelligently  than  he,  yet 
conscious  of  the  same  fundamental  impres- 
sions of  my  relations  to  the  unseen  Deity. 

Once  I  did  enter  into  devotions  in  just 
this  way,  in  the  Notre  Dame  at  Montreal. 
It  was  a  stormy  day  ;  men  were  praying  all 
over  the  house,  silent  and  motionless,  rever- 
ent in  mien,  and  devoutly  giving  the  sign  of 
the  cross,  and  bowing  before  altar,  image, 
and  picture.  I  said,  ''  I  am  a  praying  man 
too.  I  care  not  much  for  those  great  puffed- 
out,  blood-burdened  hearts  under  glass  cases, 
with  little  red  globes  strung  along  the  gas 
pipes  in  semi-circle  above  them,  or  those 
vases  filled  with  dowdy  artificial  flowers ; 
but  there  is  an  incense  of  devotion  going 
up,  there    is    a    recognition    of  the    oversoul 


CI?e  Basts  of  prayer.  249 

and  human  dependence.  However  great  the 
superstition,  there  is  worship.  I  will  worship 
too,  believing  that  God  who  seeth  the  heart 
of  Papist  and  Protestant  alike,  will  be  well 
pleased." 

You  all  will  remember  the  wonderful  pict- 
ure called  the  Angelus.  The  attitude  of  that 
peasant  man  and  woman  is  an  attitude  of 
prayer.  In  the  distance  a  steeple  rises  above 
the  horizon,  but  they  are  not  listening  to  the 
silver  tone  of  bells.  You  need  not  be  told 
they  are  engaged  in  worship.  The  legend 
that  ascribes  the  bell  note  as  the  signal  for 
their  devotion,  is  not  needed  in  interpreta- 
tion. Whether  bells  are  sounding  in  their 
ears,  it  is  no  matter  ;  they  heed  them  not ; 
their  souls  are  enwrapt.  Consciousness  of 
dependence  has  obtained  recognition  for  a 
divine  Guest,  who  will  not  turn  His  back  in 
the  half-opened  door.  All  other  sounds  are 
banished,  all  other  sights  are  dim  ;  one  pres- 
ence illumines  two  hearth-rooms,  and  two 
spirits  are  prostrate  in  adoration.  One 
almost  hears  the  words,  ''Put  off  thy  shoes 
from  thy  feet,  for  the  place  where  thou 
standest  is  holy  ground."  The  hundreds  of 
thousands  who  have  stood  before  that  bit  of 
canvass  twenty-two  inches  in  its  widest  part, 


250         Hett)  (£oncepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

and  have  lingered  that  its  impression  might 
grow  beyond  first  sight  effects,  have  sat  con- 
scious that  an  impression  unusual  in  this  sen- 
sual, material  age,  has  been  infused  into  the 
dull  pigments  by  the  consecrated  genius  of 
the  painter,  so  that  they  have  become  vocal 
with  the  thoughts  and  sentiments  of  a  human 
heart  prostrate  before  the  throne  of  the  King 
of  kings. 

The  atheist,  with  the  spiritual  and  moral 
dullard,  can  only  say,  "  What  can  this  mean  .?" 
but  goes  away  touched  on  a  side  of  nature 
never  before  awakened.  To  them,  however, 
who  have  known  the  way  of  peace  but  have 
neglected  the  means  of  grace,  and  so  have 
not  walked  in  its  ways,  it  is  a  sermon  which 
preaches  louder  than  a  preacher's  voice  and 
more  powerful  than  his  pen.  ''Peace,"  he 
saith,  "  which  others  have  and  I  have  not,  is 
found  by  the  prayerful  peasant  who  acknowl- 
edges God,  being  conscious  of  the  strength 
of  the  right  arm  of  the  Omnipotent,  and  of 
his  own  dependence  thereon." 

To  the  weary  and  tired  there  is  a  ministry 
in  worship.  For  the  tempted  and  the  sick 
there  is  a  trance  which  redeems  the  spirit 
from  the  dominion  of  the  body,  and  makes 
a  dying  bed  as  soft   as    downy  pillows  are. 


tri?e  Basts  of  prayer,  251 

Martyr  after  martyr  gave  up  his  life  in  the 
flame  and  smoke  of  death  at  the  stake,  and 
thought  not  of  his  pains,  but  only  of  the 
revelation  of  the  Lord  Jesus  to  his  eyes, 
before  whom  his  spirit  prostrated  itself  on 
its  knees,  a  service  which  the  cords  binding 
to  the  stake  could  not  restrain.  Huss  died 
with  the  words  of  the  supplication  of  the 
mass  upon  his  lips,  *'  O  Lord,  have  mercy 
upon  us."  Green's  shorter  history  of  the 
English  people  says  of  the  Marian  persecu- 
tion, '*  Rogers,  .  .  .  one  of  the  foremost 
among  the  Protestant  preachers,  died  bath- 
ing his  hands  in  the  flame,  as  if  it  had  been 
in  cold  water.  Even  the  commonest  lives 
gleamed  for  a  moment  into  poetry  at  the 
stake.  '  Pray  for  me,'  a  boy,  William  Brown, 
who  had  been  brought  home  to  Brentwood 
to  suffer,  asked  of  the  bystanders  round.  *I 
will  pray  no  more  for  thee,'  one  of  them  re- 
plied, 'than  I  will  pray  for  a  dog.'  'Then,' 
said  William,  *  Son  of  God,  shine  upon  me,' 
and  immediately  the  sun  in  the  elements 
shone  out  of  a  dark  cloud  so  full  in  his  face 
that  he  was  constrained  to  look  another  way." 
To  us  who  are  Christians  has  been  vouch- 
safed fullness  of  knowledge.  Through  the 
Jews  has  come  one  Christ,  the  revealer  in  His 


252         Xlzw  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

person  of  the  mind,  heart,  and  temper  of 
God.  One  with  all  men  in  conscious  need 
of  worship,  we  of  all  men  have  fullness  of 
knowledge  alone  shared  by  the  Christian 
centuries.  Let  us  worship  God  less  and  less 
as  we  may  good  naturedly  treat  a  neighbor 
or  friend  of  whom  we  ask  a  kindness  with 
good  will  and  something  of  fawning ;  but 
rather  with  consciousness  of  dependence  in 
manly  recognition  of  the  oversoul,  let  us 
worship  as  the  prelude  to  petition,  as  con- 
comitant to  service,  and  as  the  end  of  all 
striving,  God's  recognition  of  us  being  our 
hope  and  our  glory. 


THE  LIFE  BURDEN  A  PRAYER. 

^'' Rememberme^  O  my  Lord,  and  wipe  not  out 
my  good  deeds  that  I  have  done  for  the  house 
of  my  God  and  for  the  offices  thereof. ^^ — 
Neh.  J  J  :  14. 

NEHEMIAH,  you  will  remember,  was  the 
great  leader  who  brought  back  the  fifty 
thousand  exiles  from  Persia,  and  re-estab- 
lished the  Israelitish  name  in  its  ancient 
seats.  When  the  walls  had  been  rebuilt 
about  Jerusalem,  the  prime  necessity  for  trade 
and  personal  security  being  accomplished,  he 
gave  himself  to  the  extirpation  of  heathen 
practices  among  the  people,  and  to  the  re- 
establishment  of  the  pure  worship  of  Jehovah. 
Three  times  in  this  chapter,  and  once  else- 
where, he  asks  God's  remembrance  of  him 
for  what  he  had  done.  These  were  the 
climactic  acts  of  his  career ;  he  had  gained 
the  permission  of  the  mighty  Cyrus,  and  per- 
formed the  long  march  at  the  head  of  the 
emigrants,  refortified  the  city,  and  done  all 
that  he  might  bring  a  transplanted  nation 
and  priesthood  back  into  impact  with  the 
heavenly   King.     In    view  of  these  last  acts 

(253) 


254         Hen?  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

crowning  his  whole  labor,  his  cry  is,  "  Re- 
member me,  O  my  God,  for  good."  This  is  a 
breathing  out  of  the  heart  of  the  man.  The 
labors  of  a  lifetime  he  offers  up  ;  conscious  of 
his  singleness  of  purpose  and  of  the  service 
he  has  been  able  to  render,  he  asks  that  his 
works  may  plead  for  him,  and  that  the  great 
acts  of  his  life  may  stand  as  memorials  of 
what  he  did,  each  one  a  reminder  to  the  eter- 
nal Spirit  and  appealing  to  the  love  of  the 
divine  Heart. 

"  Ah  !  "  says  some  one,  "  Nehemiah  is  lay- 
ing down  on  the  counter  the  price  he  would 
pay  for  himself,  as  a  slave  under  the  old 
regimen  might  redeem  his  freedom  with  the 
wages  of  his  slavery.  And  as  the  first  words 
of  bill  of  sale  of  the  freedman  granted 
mastery  over  his  body  unto  himself,  so  with 
similar  conception  the  man  of  God  is  pur- 
chasing himself  of  his  God  for  his  own  selfish 
ends,  is  gaining  mastery  for  himself  through 
purchase,  '  Remember,  O  Lord,  my  works, 
and  grant  me  good.'"  Now  the  preacher  is 
aware  that  no  man  is  equal  to  the  task  of 
his  own  redemption,  and  that  it  is  through 
God's  love  that  we  are  saved,  and  that  our 
justification  must  be  through  the  merits  of 
a    matchless    personality.     But    justification 


Cl^e  Ctfe  Burben  a  prayer.  255 

by  faith  is  one  thing,  and  the  return  of  love 
by  the  creature  justified  is  another.  It  is 
one  thing  to  rest  assured  of  the  pardon  of 
God,  and  another  thing  to  accept  that  par- 
don in  penitence  and  taking  heart  to  mould 
one's  character  over  after  the  model  of  Him 
who  needed  no  repentance.  This  second 
act  of  putting  one's  self  right  with  God  is 
by  no  means  conflicting  with  that  conscious- 
ness of  personal  ill-desert  and  acceptance  of 
God's  scheme  of  redemption.  This  attitude 
of  Nehemiah  may  be  called  Old  Testament 
legalism,  or  salvation  by  works,  or  any  other 
name  ;  to  me  it  appears  to  be  a  noble  peti- 
tion, worthy  of  any  devout  nature,  ancient 
or  modern. 

A  Christian  woman,  speaking  of  missions 
in  my  hearing,  said,  "  The  burden  of  the 
Christian  as  one  advances  is  changed  into 
prayer,"  and  then  corrected  herself  adding, 
*' Rather,  the  burden  of  the  Christian  is 
changed  into  wings."  The  first  statement 
had  made  its  impression  upon  me,  and  I 
could  not  forget  it.  Ah!  yes,  I  said,  I've 
seen  it  so  many  a  time.  A  mother,  to  re- 
claim an  erring  child,  will  pamper  his  ap- 
petite with  food  to  his  taste  ;  will  gratify 
his  whim   in   little  things  about  the  house  ; 


256         Xltvo  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

will  plead  with  father  that  he  may  not  be  so 
stern  with  the  boy  ;  with  dear,  affectionate 
lips  will  coax  the  wanderer,  will  think  of  him 
much,  however  recreant  may  be  his  life,  and 
will  pray  for  him  with  travail  of  heart.  Does 
not  the  burden  of  that  life  become  trans- 
formed by  the  load  of  its  passion,  the  passion 
of  a  weak  human  heart  ?  Does  not  its  bur- 
den, so  willingly  borne,  become  a  mightier 
prayer  than  any  faltering  petition  that  the 
mother  heart  can  frame  from  tremulous  lips  ? 
Does  not  the  life  with  its  burden  avail  more 
mightily  with  God  than  the  mere  prayers  of 
a  million  men  ?  Christ  is  set  forth  in  the 
Scriptures  as  at  the  right  hand  of  the 
Majesty  on  high,  our  intercessor.  Do  you 
think  that  the  nature  of  His  intercession 
is  continual  request  for  our  help.'*  or  do 
our  prayers  receive  the  indorsement  of  His 
wounded  hands  and  side,  seals  of  His  passion 
and  sign  manuals  of  His  burden  of  redemp- 
tion, eternally  made  a  prayer,  and  never  lack- 
ing in  potency  to  the  heart  of  the  Father  ? 

There  was  a  general  in  the  East  who 
enlisted  in  the  war  of  the  Rebellion,  was 
frightfully  maimed,  and  received  his  dis- 
charge from  the  hospital  a  mere  trunk,  as  I 
remember  the  story.     He  soon  sent   word  to 


tr^e  £ife  Burben  a  Prayer, 


257 


his  fiance,  releasing  her  from  her  pledge, 
which  release  she  promptly  refused.  You  see 
it  was  not  the  wording  of  his  petition,  but 
the  burden  of  his  life,  that  made  the  prayer 
which  touched.  She  said  there  was  more  in 
him  as  he  was  than  in  any  man  she  knew.  If 
human  kind  are  thus  moved,  is  it  too  much  to 
believe  that  God  is  won  more  by  the  master- 
motive  of  a  life  which  culminates  in  a  shat- 
tered body,  and  of  which  this  is  a  witness  of 
unspeakable  power,  mightier  far  than  any 
voiced  aspiration  of  the  heart  in  the  lip-serv- 
ice prayer  ?  We  had  a  boy  in  college  who 
lived  across  the  river  and  walked  in  to  his 
recitations.  Nobody  that  knew  him  could 
help  respecting  him,  but  so  much  was  ex- 
pected of  him  in  manual  labor  on  the  farm, 
and  he  scrimped  so  much  on  clothing,  that 
we  thought  him  rather  a  light  weight.  He 
did  not  have  the  chance  to  study  as  the 
rest  of  us  did.  As  he  progressed  in  his 
professional  studies,  we  were  conscious  of 
a  vast  development,  and  in  the  flower  of 
his  youth  and  culture  he  gave  himself  (the 
deacon's  best  gift  to  the  Lord)  to  Foreign 
Missions,  and  was  assigned  to  Mexico.  Be- 
fore fully  acclimated,  while  worn  down  with 
his  studies,  he  took  the  small-pox  and  died, 
17 


258         HctD  Concepts  of  £)I6  Dogmas. 

As  the  spirit  of  the  boy  left  his  swollen,  pu- 
trid flesh,  would  you  call  it  legalism  or  work 
righteousness  had  he  exclaimed,  "  Remember 
me,  O  my  God,  concerning  this,  and  wipe  not 
out  my  good  deeds  that  I  have  done  for  the 
house  of  my  God  and  the  offices  thereof"  ? 
Could  not  his  poor  body,  as  representing  the 
burden  of  his  life,  speak  louder  than  all  his 
prayers,  had  he  lived  a  thousand  years  in  a 
monastery  apart  and  given  his  whole  strength 
to  prayer  and  devotion  ? 

We  pray  by  choice,  that  is  for  chance  ob- 
jects. We  happen  to  think  of  somebody,  and 
word  of  petition  follows.  We  surprise  our- 
selves often  in  the  new  objects  that  of  a  sud- 
den appear  to  us  for  prayer  and  the  persons 
for  whom  we  pray.  Now  no  prayer  is  lost, 
and  I  would  encourage  you  to  pray  irration- 
ally, for  we  must  pray  all  ways,  with  all 
manner  of  weakness  and  spiritual  poverty, 
that  we  may  enter  into  the  true  blessedness 
of  prayer  ;  but  do  not  lay  too  much  stress  upon 
it.  When  sportsmen  shoot  aimlessly,  they 
shoot  into  the  air.  When  you  pray  aimlessly, 
you  often  pray  from  feeling,  and  never  coun- 
ter to  the  spirit  of  your  life,  pray  as  you  would 
not  have  prayed  had  you  thought  upon  it. 
Which  prayer  shall  God  answer,  the  prayer  of 


CI?e  £tfe  Burben  a  prayer.  259 

the  lip,  or  the  prayer  of  the  life's  burden  ? 
Which  do  you  want  answered  ?  Is  it  not  the 
prayer  of  the  life-burden,  after  all  ?  And  as 
you  stand  to-day  looking  back  upon  your 
life,  do  not  the  failures  to  answer  chance  pe- 
titions seem  trifling  one  way  or  the  other  ? 
Do  you  not  know  that  the  final  petition,  the 
asking  of  your  deepest  desire,  bearing  the 
sum  of  all  your  petitions,  their  very  sub- 
stance, is  found  in  the  burden  of  the  life? 

We  may  pray  for  our  wants,  which  seem 
as  multitudinous  and  varied  as  those  con- 
tained in  the  advertising  columns  of  the 
daily  press,  and  pray  for  our  needs,  all  of 
which  are  solid,  real  things  to  us,  and  there 
may  be  no  more  doubt  about  our  truly  de- 
siring the  things  asked  than  of  our  neces- 
sity ;  but  such  petitions,  emphatically  ours, 
inconsiderately  ours,  in  which  we  ask  wealth 
for  ourselves  and  no  one  else,  health  for  us 
and  our  children,  for  the  gratification  of  our 
ambitions,  that  our  pleasures  may  be  unob- 
structed and  receive  the  blessing  of  Heaven, 
couched  in  worshipful  and  respectful  terms 
toward  God,  they  are  importunate  and 
Scriptural,  for  they  follow  the  rule,  but 
do  we  expect  them  answered  ?  There  is 
every  human   need    in    them    but    soul    hun- 


260         Heip  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

ger,  every  objective  but  the  good  of  others, 
every  passion  but  the  passion  for  holiness, 
every  moral  thing  but  equity,  every  love 
but  love  for  Christ,  simple  and  sincere  ; 
and  such  a  clamor  for  blessing  we  call 
prayer !  And  it  is  a  kind  of  prayer.  But 
if  my  soul  is  in  peril,  and  eternal  destiny 
hangs  upon  mortal  issues  for  me,  God  grant 
that  my  life  may  be  involved  within  the 
sphere  of  action  of  another  life  in  which  such 
lip-service  has  only  a  minor  place,  and  the 
life  is  a  constant  burden  of  doing  good  ; 
when  the  ruling  passion  is  the  travail  of 
Christ  for  the  rescue  of  a  human  soul  to 
ways  of  life,  and  when  the  soul  is  given  to 
paths  of  duty,  and  God  is  great  beyond  com- 
pare to  one  consciousness,  and  His  purpose 
supreme  law  to  one  will.  For  I  know  that 
such  a  person,  whether  humble  or  great, 
hath  power  with  God  for  greater  than  lip- 
service,  the  burden  is  transformed  into 
prayer,  a  constant  reminder  of  a  motive  such 
as  dwells  in  angels'  bosoms.  I  believe  such 
a  person  can  alter  the  course  of  Orion  and 
the  Pleiades,  change  the  movement  of  human 
destinies  by  his  own  petition,  and  by  his  own 
prayers  alone  transform  those  human  socie- 


CF}e  £tfe  Burben  a  prayer.  261 

ties  we  call  nations,  and  lift  up  all  civilization 
nearer  God. 

Of  the  salvation  of  the  individual  by  a  life 
burden  made  a  prayer,  I  cite  the  rescue  of 
John  B.  Gough  from  a  drunkard's  cups 
through  the  prayful  endeavors  of  his  wife. 
Of  the  salvation  of  a  nation  by  the  life  burden 
made  a  prayer,  I  cite  the  revolution  of  Scot- 
land by  John  Knox.  Of  the  uplifting  of 
human  civilization  by  a  life-burden  made  a 
prayer,  I  cite  the  wonderful  influence  of 
Christopher  Columbus,  through  the  discovery 
of  America,  upon  European  Christendom.  As 
Columbus  lay  in  the  hold  of  the  ship,  return- 
ing a  captive  to  the  Spain  he  had  endowed, 
the  victim  of  ingratitude,  oppressed  and  over- 
thrown by  a  stupendous  wickedness  and 
malice,  I  believe  that  by  reason  of  the  burden 
he  so  pathetically  and  proudly  bore  it  be- 
came transformed  into  a  petition  of  the 
mighty  soul  that  moved  the  heart  of  God  ; 
and  that  when,  in  addition  to  the  mute  peti- 
tion of  the  life,  Columbus  prayed,^  all  Heaven 
heard    the   whisperings    of  human    lips,   and 

iQf  Columbus  we  are  told:  "So  strict  in  religious 
matters,  that  for  fasting  and  saying  all  the  divine  office, 
he  might  be  thought  professed  in  some  religious  order." 


262         ttem  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

Christ  saw  the  travail  of  His  soul  and  was 
satisfied,  and  the  Father  and  the  Son  were  at 
one  with  each  other.  Which  was  the  greater 
honor,  to  discover  a  new  world,  or  to  have 
the  burden  of  the  life  changed  into  prayer? 
Which  ? 


A  VALID  REDEMPTION. 

*♦  As  Moses  lifted  up  the  serpent  in  the  wilder- 
ness, even  so  must  the  Son  of  man  be  lifted 
up  :  that  whosoever  believe th  may  ifi  Him 
have  eternal  life:' —  John  3  :  14,  IS- 

A  FEW  years  ago,  in  one  of  the  large  fac- 
tory towns  in  New  Hampshire,  a  little 
French  boy  met  with  an  accident  which 
necessitated  medical  assistance.  His  skull 
was  stoven  in  at  a  given  point  ;  during  the 
painful  operations  of  the  surgeon  he  sat 
unmovable  and  calm,  without  an  anaesthetic 
and  with  nothing  to  help  him  bear  the 
anguish  save  only  a  diminutive  cross  and  the 
image  on  it,  rude  but  suggestive  of  Him 
who  bore  our  sorrows  in  His  own  body 
on  the  tree.  That  medical  operator  was 
a  sincere  and  devoted  Protestant,  and  his 
assistant,  a  man  of  similar  views,  shared  his 
principal's  conviction  that  the  boy's  faith 
helped  him  in  his  extremity. 

Protestant  theology  also  uses  this  symbol 
as  a  stimulus  and  help  to  man  in  his  ex- 
tremity. We  point  the  eyes  of  the  dying  to 
the  cross  which    was    raised    upon    Calvary, 

(263) 


264         HetD  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

that  it  may  be  to  them  like  the  brazen  ser- 
pent in  the  wilderness  to  the  stricken  Israel- 
ite,—  a  source  of  healing  and  recovery.  We 
do  not  offer  the  crucifix,  because  we  fear 
that  it  may  become  an  object  of  idolatry  ; 
that  instead  of  finding  in  the  smaller  cross 
a  remembrance  of  the  true  cross,  it  may 
come  to  be  the  all,  an  object  of  reverence 
and  a  fixture  accessory  to  the  incantations 
of  devotion,  in  the  prayers  of  the  rosary. 
We  say  with  Knox,  in  his  Scottish  fervor. 
It  is  a  bit  of  painted  wood  ;  but  we  wel- 
come the  faith  that  survives  the  appeal  to 
the  external  senses,  and  which,  beyond  the 
sympathy  which  the  image  of  suffering  may 
produce,  has  in  its  consciousness  that  cross 
of  Calvary,   as  an  object   of  faith. 

This  may  be  readily  explained.  You  pass 
a  person  suffering  bodily  anguish,  and  your 
heart  goes  out  to  him,  but  that  is  not  an  act 
of  the  religious  sensibilities  ;  true,  the  man 
or  woman  without  pity  is  less  religious  than 
the  person  with  it,  but  there  is  no  distinct 
moral  impression  which  makes  a  man  hate 
sin  or  brings  him  into  peace  with  God.  Thus 
in  so  far  as  the  crucifix  brings  up  to  the  mind 
merely  the  bodily  suffering  of  the  Lord  Jesus, 
it  is  no  help  to  faith  ;  but  in  so  far  as  that 


U  Valxb  Hebemptton.  265 


crucifix  or  your  thought  and  my  thought  of 
Calvary  pervades  the  consciousness  with  the 
idea  of  Christ  on  the  cross  as  a  sacrifice  of  the 
sins  of  humanity,  or  as  an  atonement  by 
means  of  which  reconciliation  is  possible  be- 
tween God  and  man,  or  as  the  most  potent 
example  of  the  moral  power  of  self-abnega- 
tion, constrained  by  the  power  of  which 
exemplar  men  in  all  ages  are  led  to  resist 
"even  unto  blood,  striving  against  sin,"  in 
so  far  the  cross  becomes  what  Jesus  said  it 
should  in  our  text,  namely,  a  means  of  the 
purification  of  man's  heart,  of  the  transforma- 
tion of  man's  motive,  of  the  salvation  of  man's 
soul.  This  is  the  bed  rock  of  Christendom  ; 
here  is  to  be  found  all  that  is  worth  having  in 
the  old  church  or  the  new. 

We  do  not  deny  that  immortality  is  a  great 
doctrine,  but  immortality  hinges  on  the 
death  of  Christ  ;  we  do  not  deny  that  ethics 
is  a  great  topic,  but  we  say  the  highest  ethics 
and  the  best  morality  must  recognize  in  the 
suffering  Redeemer  the  profoundest  moral 
experience  ever  witnessed  upon  earth.  Hu- 
man philosophy  attains  its  highest  levels 
only  when  it  explains  the  relation  of  the 
Crucified  to  the  redemption  of  humanity, 
justifying   the    claim   of  theology  to   be  es- 


266         ttetD  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Doijmas. 

teemed  queen  of  the  sciences.  Human  life 
is  never  apprehended  in  its  true  dignity  until 
it  is  seen  to  be  worthy  the  sacrifice  of  the 
highest  of  uncreated  beings,  the  sufferings 
and  sin  of  human  beings  causing  Deity  to 
suffer  as  the  only  possible  means  of  re- 
demption. 

Suppose  we  listen  to  the  wild  cry  of  the 
mob,  and  strike  Christ's  true  cross  out  of 
Christian  belief;  once  more  the  heathen  age 
returns  when  man,  and  man  only,  is  a  cosmic 
fact,  and  God  or  gods  are  mere  possibilities 
to  the  imagination  of  dreamers.  How  de- 
graded would  seem  the  poverty  of  man's 
endowment !  how  base  the  flights  of  his  pur- 
est imagination !  how  ignoble  his  physical 
constitution  !  how  worthless  the  boon  of 
existence !  Christ  without  the  cross  is  a 
Socrates  ;  Christ  with  the  cross  is  God  in- 
carnated in  human  flesh.  Christ  without 
the  cross  is  a  moral  personality  of  superior 
intentions  as  to  duty  and  righteousness  ; 
Christ  with  the  cross  is  the  exemplification 
to  remotest  ages  and  all  mankind  of  the 
verity  of  eternal  justice,  that  there  is  no 
forgiveness  of  sin  unless  the  punishment  of 
transgression  meets  its  due  reward.  Christ 
without    the    cross    resigns   mankind  to   be 


U  Valib  Kebcmptton.  267 


smitten  by  its  appetencies,  leaves  it  cradled 
in  crime  to  grow  up  into  criminality  ;  Christ 
with  the  cross  raises  human  character  from 
ruin  and  degradation,  and  establishes  holi- 
ness in  human  hearts.  We  mean  to  claim,  in 
other  words,  that  human  society  is  revolu- 
tionized by  the  doctrines  of  the  cross  ;  that 
it  brings  into  touch,  if  you  please,  with 
human  experience,  ideas  and  ideals  other- 
wise unknown  and  strange.  This  we  think  is 
admitted  on  all  hands,  the  difference  of  view, 
of  feeling,  of  passion,  and  of  love,  which  is 
illustrated  in  a  man  who  has  never  heard  the 
gospel,  and  the  same  man  when  he  has  heard 
it  proclaimed,  or,  better,  when  he  has  ac- 
cepted it,  and  made  it  his  own. 

Here  we  are  met  by  the  objections,  "But 
the  cross  which  the  church  holds  up  is  a 
fiction."  "  Christ  did  die,  but  dead,  his  death 
avails  not  ;  the  atonement,  the  sacrifice,  the 
reconciliation,  mean  nothing.  We  believe 
in  facts,  the  church  believes  in  fancy's  dream, 
cleanse  thy  body  of  superstitions,  and  we  will 
receive  the  church  evangel."  We  beg  to 
differ  with  such  voices.  True,  the  cross  is 
a  symbol,  but  it  must  be  more  significant 
than  the  many  myriads  of  crosses  which 
bore    more  or  less  guilty  men    under  judg- 


268         Heto  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

ments  of  the  Roman  law,  the  world  over, 
during  the  reign  of  the  imperial  city  of  the 
Caesars.  But  we  affirm  that  the  symbol- 
ism of  the  cross  is  no  greater  than  the 
symbolism  of  ordinary  life.  Take  an  ob- 
jector who  deals  exclusively  with  facts,  and 
who  objects  to  the  ideality  of  the  Christian 
religion.  I  warrant  he  may  be  living  upon  a 
property  which  for  fifty  years  has  been  dwelt 
upon  by  his  race,  and  that  he  can  show  no 
deed  because  his  inheritance  is  one  of  un- 
broken possession.  But  why  does  that  posses- 
sion come  down  to  his  remote  generation  ? 
Simply  because  that  ancestor  fifty  or  a  hyn- 
dred  years  before  did  symbolic  things  ;  that 
is,  lived  there,  took  possession,  staked  out  his 
claim,  cultivated. 

He  may  not  have  done  so  much  upon  the 
property  as  others  upon  their  homesteads,  he 
may  not  have  been  so  needy  or  so  deserving, 
yet  the  symbolism  of  his  act  holds  the  estate, 
and  it  descends  securely  to  each  remotest 
generation  of  his  descendants.  Perhaps  our 
friend  holds  a  mortgage  upon  the  land  of  his 
neighbor  ;  he  doubtless  is  not  sorry  to  be  the 
possessor  of  such  an  instrument,  but  it  is 
merely  the  symbol  of  money  paid  and  the 
consequent    rights  to   principal  and    interest 


ZC  Vaiib  Hebemption.  269 

investing  in  him,  for  which  the  whole  prop- 
erty may  be  held  until  at  length,  the  equity 
becoming  worthless,  he  takes  possession. 
His  symbol  by  that  act  is  proven  worth  more 
than  his  neighbor's  fact.  The  symbol  has 
swallowed  it  up,  and,  if  the  first  possessor  is 
recalcitrant,  in  the  hands  of  the  sheriff  vindi- 
cates very  soon  its  right  to  be  considered  a 
potentiality  in  human  affairs.  A  store  ac- 
count, the  deposition  of  a  witness  living  or 
dead,  a  last  will  and  testament,  the  decree  of 
a  court,  the  proclamation  of  our  president,  all 
are  instances  of  the  effectual  use  of  symbolism 
in  human  affairs.  The  late  dying  emperor  of 
Germany,  unable  to  qualify  as  ruler  by  taking 
the  oath  of  office,  was  compelled  to  affirm  in 
writing  that  he  would  as  soon  as  he  were 
able,  and  though  his  ability  could  never 
come,  the  symbol  stood  for  the  act,  and  he 
was  both  a  crowned  and  uncrowned  king. 

But  the  best  illustration  of  all  is  in  the  cur- 
rency of  the  United  States.  Our  bank  bills 
and  treasury  notes  are  good,  lawful  money  ; 
in  and  of  themselves  they  are  worth  just  what 
they  will  bring  as  old  paper  or  as  curiosities  ; 
but  representing  dollars  in  gold,  they  will 
everywhere  procure  the  necessities  and  luxu- 
ries of  life.     Nothing  is  too  cheap  to  be  be- 


270         Hem  Concepts  of  £)[b  Dogmas. 

yond  their  reach,  and  no  work  of  art  hallowed 
by  the  signature  of  a  genius,  and  no  gem 
bright  with  the  radiance  of  God's  handiwork 
discovered  and  developed  by  miner  and  lapi- 
dary, is  so  choice  that  they  may  not  buy  it. 
And  yet  they  are  only  symbols  of  the  real 
value  contained  in  a  gold  coin  of  standard 
weight  and  fineness.  Methinks  the  most 
matter-of-fact  man  is  willing  to  fill  his  wallet 
with  them  ;  he  does  not  insist  on  bullion 
rather  than  bills,  that  he  m.ay  have  more  to 
do  with  realities.  The  world's  business  could 
not  be  done  without  notes  of  this  sort,  and 
checks  and  similar  business  paper.  The  man, 
therefore,  who  refuses  to  accept  the  cross  as 
a  symbol  of  Christ's  death  upon  it  and  of  his 
mediatorial  and  reconciliatory  work,  in  con- 
sistency should  refuse  bank  notes,  and  go 
about  weighted  down  with  gold  coin. 

Indeed,  we  may  push  the  same  illustra- 
tion further.  What  is  gold  ?  Well,  it  is  the 
only  yellow  metal  ;  it  is  the  most  malleable 
and  ductile  metal.  Very  thin  leaves  appear 
yellow  by  reflected  light,  and  green  by  trans- 
mitted light  ;  and  when  heated,  the  trans- 
mitted light  is  ruby  red.  One  grain  may  be 
drawn  into  a  wire  500  feet  long.  It  is  of  use 
in  jewelry,  particularly  as  furnishing,  when 


21  Valxb  Hebemptton.  271 

alloyed,  a  strong  and  beautiful  setting  for 
precious  stones.  From  most  ancient  times 
it  has  been  made  a  standard  of  value,  like 
the  shells  known  as  wampum  among  the 
North  American  Indians.  In  the  remains 
of  most  ancient  peoples,  along  the  shores 
of  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  together  with 
beautiful  ornaments,  the  style  of  which  the 
modern  goldsmiths  are  to-day  reproducing, 
are  discovered  the  nuggets  rudely  stamped 
with  the  seal  of  dynasty  or  of  metropolis, 
the  coin  of  that  remote  day.  But  gold  will 
not  shield  the  back  from  winter's  blasts  ; 
it  will  not  pacify  the  stomach  gnawed  by 
hunger  or  parched  with  thirst.  It  could  be 
dispensed  with  so  far  as  the  actual  supply  of 
man's  needs  is  concerned.  It  is,  in  other 
words,  merely  the  symbol  of  the  world's 
wealth,  the  something  into  which  all  values 
can  be  converted,  and  of  peculiar  fitness  for 
its  sphere  because  it  is  hard  to  obtain,  the 
supply  keeping  down  better  than  that  of  any 
other  metal,  so  that  it  is  not  cheapened  by 
surplusage.  Every  pound  of  tobacco,  every 
gallon  of  molasses,  every  commodity  of  com- 
merce, every  inch  of  real  property,  submits 
to  this  standard  for  the  determination  of 
its  value.     Is  it  any  wonder,  then,   that  the 


272         ruw  Concepts  of  £)16  Dogmas. 

church  cannot  understand  why  its  reality 
should  be  tainted  by  the  charge  of  fiction  ? 
For  one,  conscious  of  my  weakness,  with 
evil  ever  present  with  me  when  trying  to  do 
well,  with  the  best  of  my  purposes  not  wholly 
clear  from  evil  influence,  I  find  in  the  cross 
the  symbol  of  my  redemption,  and  I  draw 
healing  and  blessing  from  the  acceptance  of 
its  sacrifice,  as  completely  sufficient  to  atone 
for  my  lack  and  my  transgression,  believing 
that,  '*  as  Moses  lifted  up  the  serpent  in  the 
wilderness,  even  so  must  the  Son  of  man  be 
lifted  up,  that  whosoever  believeth,  may  in 
Him  have  everlasting  life."  This  is  the  stand- 
ard of  holiness  ;  this  is  the  atonement  for 
transgression  ;  this  is  the  pledge  of  life  eter- 
nal ;  this  is  the  means  of  salvation  in  a  lost 
and  ruined  world  ;  this  is  the  symbol  of  God's 
sacrifice  for  sin. 


YET  SHALL  I  LIVE. 

"  Though  he  were  dead,  yet  shall  he  liveJ*^  — 
John  II  :  -25. 

HOWEVER  poorly  the  Christian  world 
has  assimilated  the  moral  teachings  of 
Christ,  hardly  less  striking  is  the  failure  of 
mankind  to  enter  into  the  great  birthright 
of  immortality,  revelation  concerning  which  is 
contained  in  the  Christian  Scriptures.  It  is 
a  pleasure  that  all  communions  are  recogniz- 
ing this  great  festival  of  the  Christian  year, 
which  pertains  to  no  church  in  particular,  but 
to  the  church  universal,  its  observance  dating 
from  the  very  resurrection  itself,  and  being 
a  blessed  reminder  of  the  hopes  bound  up  in 
Him  who  hath  ascended  to  the  right  hand  of 
God  the  Father.  To  the  soul  that  believes  that 
He  lives,  how  can  this  life  ever  sink  down  out 
of  the  sense  of  privilege  and  responsibility 
resultant  from  apprehension  of  immortality  ? 
Better  that  the  right  hand  lose  its  cunning 
than  that  the  creature  live  for  his  day-dream 
and  passion,  his  eyes  able  to  see  naught 
above  him,  his  thought  able  to  engross  noth- 
i3  (273) 


274         Hett)  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas, 

ing  beyond  this  present  time.  While  the 
word  of  Christ  is  a  pledge  of  certainty,  the 
loss  of  which  would  be  the  loss  of  all  absolute 
assurance,  the  human  heart  rejoices  when  the 
human  reason  is  able  to  develop  arguments 
pointing  to  aptitude  and  capacities  harmoni- 
ous with  the  conception  of  a  life  to  come,  a 
continuation  and  culmination  of  the  life  that 
now  is. 

Every  person  is  impressed  with  the  inherent 
life  of  the  planet.  Men  live  and  die,  it 
matters  not  who  has  been,  only  who  is.  The 
most  magnificently  endowed  body  in  an  in- 
stant becomes  a  perishable  remnant,  brother 
of  the  insensible  clod.  This  present  life  is  a 
continuous  wave  of  existence  ;  what  now  is 
of  humanity  is  the  present  possession  of  a 
phenomenon  we  call  life.  If  all  ages  were 
allotted  to  a  zone  on  a  great  sphere,  each 
of  which,  when  it  came  under  the  sun- 
light in  its  slow  revolution,  sprang  into  life, 
all  things  behind  being  dead,  all  things  in 
the  future  being  a  creative  possibility  await- 
ing conditions  of  life,  we  should  have  a  good 
illustration  of  the  impression  which  life  in 
the  abstract  makes  upon  the  human  mind. 
Striking  God  out,  we  say  animate  nature 
lives  ;  but    we    do    not    know    how    it    lives. 


2?et  Sl?aII  3  Cbe,  275 

Studying  conditions  and  environment,  we 
cannot  learn  the  secret  of  life,  we  only  know 
that  it  is. 

It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  in  all  ages 
there  have  been  some  who  have  said,  **  All  I 
am  conscious  of  is  this  life  phase  in  which  I 
exist.  Moreover,  men  about  me  seem  moved 
by  the  same  impulses  that  I  am  ;  the  highest 
offices  of  religion  do  not  reach  the  masses.  I 
go  with  the  bulk  of  the  life  in  my  time. 
Everything  about  my  personality  I  conclude 
is  consequent  upon  life."  We  would  remind 
you,  first,  that  this  is  an  observation  of  per- 
sonal identity.  We  do  as  others  do,  we  are 
the  victims  of  circumstance  ;  we  will  live  and 
die  ;  life  is  all  and  death  ends  all.  When  this 
doctrine  comes  to  scientific  statement,  there 
is  nothing  but  matter  in  heaven  or  earth  ; 
thought,  memory,  aspiration,  are  all  products 
of  molecular  action,  like  the  heat  generated 
under  chemical  combinations.  And  the  bur- 
den of  the  siren-song  is,  "  Man,  thou  art  not 
immortal  ;  thy  hopes  are  perishable  ;  turn 
thy  face  away  from  the  heavens  ;  thy  birth- 
right to  immortality  is  a  dream." 

Recall  that  man  you  knew  well  of  old. 
There  is  not  a  particle  of  the  same  creature 
in  him  there  was  then  ;  yet  you  take  him  by 


276         Hem  Concepts  of  £)I6  Pogmas. 

the  hand,  the  same  finger  is  gone  that  was 
then  lacking ;  you  look  into  his  eyes,  they 
are  not  the  same,  but  they  look  the  same  ; 
his  face  is  wrinkled,  but  you  tell  him  it  has 
the  old  look  ;  the  voice  is  not  the  same,  but 
you  would  have  known  it  anywhere ;  and 
mentally  you  find  the  same  characteristics, 
though  somewhat  changed.  Now  in  all  the 
changes  of  the  years  has  there  not  been  a 
law  of  personal  identity  running  through  all? 
That  body  and  spirit  are  some  way  or  other 
wrapped  up  in  one  personality.  You  read 
his  books,  and  you  hold  him  responsible ; 
you  take  his  note,  and  you  hold  him  to  ac- 
count ;  you  see  him  in  a  court  of  law,  and 
you  charge  the  debt  upon  him,  and  you  re- 
fuse to  allow  him  to  prove  that  he  is  not 
responsible.  Let  him  commit  crime,  and 
you  trace  throu^gh  years  his  vicious  courses, 
and  hold  him  up  to  the  execration  of  man- 
kind. That  is,  behind  all  change  there  is  a 
reign  of  law,  which  reaches  out  into  a  certain 
domain  and  assimilates  earth,  air,  food,  and 
water  into  a  certain  reign  of  consciousness 
which  we  call  personal  existence.  I  will  be 
more  explicit ;  there  is  a  life  principle  in 
each  human  being  which  takes  light,  air, 
food,  and    drink,  and  devotes  it  to  the  con- 


^et  Sf?aII  3  Ctpe.  277 


struction,  maintenance,  and  repair  of  a  par- 
ticular body  ;  it  ministers  to  nothing  else  in 
the  world  ;  everything  that  comes  from  the 
outside  must  minister  to  it  or  be  untouched. 
You  may  pile  a  thousand  barrels  of  flour 
at  your  front  door,  but  this  life  principle  can 
only  assimilate  a  certain  quantity  such  as 
it  may  take  through  the  body  it  inhabits. 
Every  ray  of  light,  every  blow,  every  thought, 
every  convulsion  of  nature,  has  certain  ave- 
nues of  impression,  but  this  ministry  from 
without  is  limited  by  the  capacity  of  the  life 
principle  to  receive.  It  matters  not  if  there 
are  oceans  of  water,  but  it  has  not  a  drop  to 
drink  ;  or  if  the  world  is  bathed  in  sunlight, 
so  long  as  clouds  are  overhead.  This  per- 
sonal miracle  of  life  thus  breaks  in  upon  the 
phenomenon  of  life  at  large. 

II.  Turning  scrutiny  within,  we  there  find 
evidence  of  the  same  identity.  We  have 
changed,  like  our  friends,  but  we  know  that 
the  hand  which  to-day  clasps  the  hand  of 
friend,  is  the  same  that  long  ago  plighted 
troth  and  friendship  ;  however  much  may 
have  been  the  changes  in  its  physical  make 
up,  it  is  our  hand  now  and  it  was  our  hand 
then,  and  no  constraint  of  certainty  compels 
us  to  move  it  one  way  or  that,  only  the  self- 


278         ruxo  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

determinations    of  personal    identity   having 
had  ought  to  do  therewith. 

III.  Further  :  that  power  to  think  known 
to  each  of  us  is  proof  that  we  are  ;  and  this 
proof  is  not  merely  a  present  consciousness  ; 
it  registers  its  present  acts,  and  makes  them 
a  matter  of  reference  for  the  future.  No  man 
writing  down  in  ink  some  transaction  of  to- 
day, has  a  safer  record  than  you  and  I  have 
of  certain  acts  which  had  great  dramatic 
power  on  us, — dramatic,  I  say,  because  or- 
dinary events  we  do  not  care  to  treasure  ;  a 
terrible  scene  of  bloodshed  haunts  the  living 
to  the  death  ;  an  unwonted  sorrow  never  dies. 
An  old  love  may  be  imperishable  ;  there  may 
be  mothers  in  this  congregation  who  treasure 
the  little  things  of  a  child  long  dead.  Men 
have  been"  through  the  hell  of  war,  or  the 
great  excitements  of  politics,  which  have  left 
within  them  photographic  scenes  which  can 
be  called  up  by  memory  and  presented. 

IV.  If  in  power  of  thought  we  find  argu- 
ment for  identity,  much  more  in  memory. 
Amid  all  the  changes  of  our  life,  what  thing 
has  remained  constant  to  serve  as  the  nega- 
tive of  past  scenes  by  means  of  which  the 
past  is  thus  preserved,  representation  of 
which,  vivid  and  truthful,  we  may  reproduce 


5et  5l}an  3  £ipe,  279 

at  will  ?  That  this  is  contained  in  molecules 
of  the  brain,  an  inconstant  substance  con- 
stantly undergoing  change,  is  impossible  ; 
and  when  you  give  capacity  to  transfer  an 
idea  from  one  molecule  to  another,  you  have 
given  the  power  of  personal  identity.  Let 
me  clinch  the  argument  a  little  ;  the  molecule 
of  the  brain  is  the  factor  in  reproducing  im- 
pressions of  things  concerning  which  it  can 
have  no  knowledge  of  itself,  because  they 
took  place  before  it  was  in  existence.  Plainly, 
therefore,  there  is  something  in  living  rela- 
tions with  the  molecule,  capable  of  transfer- 
ring from  one  molecule  to  another,  impres- 
sions which  it  has  derived  from  one  alone.  A 
man  faints  away  ;  molecule  and  atom  remain 
in  his  brain  cells,  but  where  is  thought  ? 
Dead  or  dormant,  surely,  for  when  he  comes 
out  of  it,  reason  awakes.  The  power  to  think 
has  remained  somewhere  while  the  life  of  the 
body  has  gone  on  ;  now  where,  I  ask,  was  it  ? 
How  can  a  molecule  have  one  moment  the 
power  of  thought  and  one  moment  not.-* 
Plainly  the  power  of  thought  has  relations 
with  the  molecule,  but  is  not  that  molecule. 
Again  :  to  take  a  well-authenticated  instance  : 
A  laborer  was  struck  by  a  falling  brick,  and 
was  rendered  insensible.     When  he  recovered 


280         Hett)  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

consciousness,  he  finished  the  sentence  which 
was  interrupted  when  the  accident  occurred. 
The  functions  of  the  body  were  broken  off, 
and  the  real  thinking  power  was  held  in  leash 
until  the  relations  could  be  re-established  be- 
tween body  and  spirit.  Plainly,  there  is 
something  behind  the  body  which  flesh  and 
blood  is  not  heir  to,  which  hath  a  kingdom  of 
its  own,  and  which  has  relations  to  the  flesh 
for  reasons  of  convenience  only.  Again  :  a 
person  dies  from  a  stroke  of  lightning,  or  fs 
drowned  ;  there  seems  no  mutilation  of  the 
body,  but  in  spite  of  molecular  immobility 
the  capacity  for  thought  has  gone.  Some- 
thing greater  than  the  body  was  here,  some- 
thing that  used  the  body,  something  over 
which  the  body  had  no  control,  without  which 
the  body  cannot  protect  itself  from  dissolu- 
tion. 

Being  therefore  so  all  important,  holding 
as  it  does  the  key  of  the  centrifugal  forces 
which  pull  together  the  microcosm  we  call 
the  body,  is  it  strange  that  Christian  men 
hold  that  the  truly  essential  life  is  that  which 
has  gone,  or  that,  impressed  with  the  argu- 
ment drawn  from  personal  identity,  they 
have  believed  that  through  the  transplanta- 
tion of  that  mysterious  hidden  fire  of  being  is 


^et  SI?aII  3  Ctpe.  281 

found  the  true  explanation  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  immortality  of  the  human  soul  ?  Is  it 
any  harder  for  the  human  spirit  to  energize 
a  new  body  in  the  glorified  state  of  heaven, 
transferring  itself  from  its  present  energizing 
vocation  in  the  human  organism,  than  for  it 
to  transfer  its  spiritual  and  sensual  impres- 
sions, that  is,  its  thoughts  and  recollections  of 
places  and  occasions,  from  the  molecules  of 
the  brain,  its  officer  and  servant,  of  fifty 
years  ago,  to  the  molecules  of  the  brain  of 
to-day  ?  Fifty  years  ago  I  saw  something  ; 
the  eyes  that  saw  it  are  gone,  the  brain  that 
registered  the  sensory  impressions  of  the 
nerves  of  the  eye  is  gone  ;  that  was  fifty  years 
ago.  On  the  new  brain  of  to-day  my  inner 
self  brings  up  that  old  impression,  and  I  see 
it  in  my  mind's  eye  again.  I  say  that  gap  of 
fifty  years  thus  o'erleaped  is  as  great  as  the 
gap  between  the  life  that  now  is,  and  that 
which  is  to  come,  and  that  the  energization 
of  the  new  molecule  of  the  brain  fiber  and 
reproduction  of  sensory  impressions  is  as 
great  as  the  energization  of  a  glorified  body 
and  the  reproduction  of  sensory  impressions 
in  the  land  beyond  the  swelling  floods.  With 
throbbing  heart,  therefore,  in  the  presence  of 
the    awfulness    of    death,    dilating   with    the 


282         rtctt)  Concepts  of  £)lb  Dogmas. 

hopes  of  a  man  for  immortality,  gathering  in 
the  testimony  which  my  personal  identity 
gives  to  the  feasibility  of  that  hope,  I  accept 
the  word  of  my  Master,  and  believe  with  the 
assurance  of  faith  that  though  I  shall  die,  yet 
shall  I  live. 


HE  IS  RISEN. 

''He   is   not   here;    for  he  is  risen.''—  Matt. 
.28  : 6. 

THE  opening  sentence  of  the  collect  for 
Easter  Sunday —  '' Almighty  God,  who 
through  Thine  only  begotten  Son,  Jesus 
Christ,  hast  overcome  death,  and  opened 
unto  us  the  gate  of  everlasting  life"— is  a 
wonderful  sentence,  wonderful  as  pure  lim- 
pid English,  the  glorious,  chaste,  and  beauti- 
ful tongue  to  which  we  were  born  ;  wonderful 
as  pregnant  with  thought  so  copious  that 
volumes  could  be  written  upon  it  ;  and  as  an 
exact  statement  of  Bible  teaching  in  unin- 
spired words,  presenting  in  freshest  way 
Scripture  thought.  This  collect  ends  as  our 
text,  and  leaves  us  gazing  into  eternity. 

I  was  born,  says  one,  amid  the  hills  ;  love 
nourished  me,  and  I  grew.  I  do  not  know 
anything  about  it,  only  that  in  the  blackness 
of  the  night  that  shrouded  my  being,  lumin- 
ous points  appeared,  here  a  love,  there  an 
experience,  again  a  knowledge  which  might 
better  be  termed  a  consciousness.     The  one 

(283) 


284        Hem  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

was  the  love  which  is  nurtured  in  the  home. 
It  can  have  no  introduction  to  you  ;  your 
hearts  have  been  swayed  by  it,  and  must 
be  so  long  as  God  gives  you  reason  and 
existence. 

Another  luminous  point  against  the  back- 
ground of  that  forgetfulness  out  of  which  we 
sprang  into  our  mother's  arms,  is  what  I 
might  call  world-consciousness  ;  for  it  grows 
to  that.  It  begins  in  the  sense  of  touch  ; 
however,  we  cannot  trace  it  thus  far ;  we 
learn  to  trust  our  instincts  at  first  just  as 
honey  bees  somehow  learn  to  soar  aloft  and 
line  straight  for  the  hive.  But  there  comes, 
by  and  by,  the  luminous  point  when  we  be- 
gin to  mentally  register  conceptions  of  what 
we  see,  what  we  hear,  what  we  feel  and  smell ; 
this  grows,  but  we  remember  its  beginning. 
The  third  luminous  point  grows  out  of  con- 
trast between  life  and  the  unknown,  some 
experience  which,  across  the  brightness  and 
sunshine  of  our  living,  casts  the  shadow  of 
a  power,  which,  when  it  strikes,  strikes  to 
maim  and  destroy.  It  is  shrouded  at  first, 
so  that  we  do  not  understand  that  it  is 
natural  law  and  that  it  worketh  death  ;  but 
it  plunges  the  iron  of  a  nameless  dread  into 
the  soul.     When  we  are  blown  off  our  feet 


^e  3^  Hisen,  285 

by  cyclones,  and  hug  the  ground  in  terror, 
or  when  we  nearly  drown,  the  memory  of  our 
minutes  of  clutching  at  grass  roots,  vainly 
trying  to  pull  ourselves  out,  and  the  seconds 
when  we  are  under  water  before  the  air 
bladder  of  the  lungs  brings  us  to  the  sur- 
face, these  photographed  on  the  memory, 
ever  bring  up  the  same  first  luminous  notions 
of  things.  From  the  first  we  have  appetites 
and  we  learn  to  know  passions. 

Look  at  those  pictures  in  the  illustrated 
magazines,  of  abject  slaves  and  their  savage 
black  masters.  Tears  must  fill  the  eyes  of 
the  philanthropist  as  he  thinks  of  the  poor 
children  of  Africa  being  hurried  away  by  the 
inhuman  mastiffs  that  guard  them,  to  the  sea- 
coast  under  incredible  hardships  and  direful 
miseries.  They,  too,  have  had  the  dawning 
of  reason  ;  they,  too,  are  men  ;  they,  too, 
have  had  the  luminous  points  arise  to  this 
mental  vision  ;  and  have  had  their  horizon 
enlarge.  But  their  horizon  is  not  yours, 
their  loves  are  not  yours,  their  knowledge 
is  not  yours.  How  mighty  the  force  of  cir- 
cumstances to  crush  the  weak  !  On  the  other 
hand,  witness  the  arrogance  of  the  captors. 
See  the  predominance  of  bestial  character- 
istics, the  weakness  of  the  moral  and  spiritual 


286         Xtew  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

nature,  the  high  ardor  of  their  cruelty.  They 
have  the  air  of  men  who  die  in  their  calling 
if  to  achieve  their  ends  death  is  necessary  ; 
but  their  calling  is  man  stealing  ;  the  sorrows 
of  others  are  their  meat  and  drink.  Does 
the  invincible  human  courage  raise  the  abo- 
riginal races  of  the  dark  continent  ?  Is  it  not 
rather  used  to  render  more  complete  the  ab- 
jectness  of  man's  ignorance,  the  misery  of  his 
estate  by  nature  ? 

What  makes  the  difference  between  them 
and  us  ?  The  stereotyped  answer  is,  Civiliza- 
tion !  Yes,  a  very  noble  answer.  For  in- 
stance, notice  the  civilization  of  the  Indian  at 
the  West.  He  is  a  drunken,  lazy  brute, 
always  drinking  the  white  man's  whisky, 
always  lending  himself  to  the  white  man's 
immorality,  paving  the  way  for  his  own  de- 
struction, so  mean  that  the  proverb,  '*  No 
good  Indian  but  a  dead  one,"  is  current.  But 
then,  of  course,  it  is  right  ( ?)  ;  for  it  is  civili- 
zation ennobling  the  untutored  mind  of  the 
savage. 

Take  the  black  man  at  the  South  before  the 
war.  The  Southern  whites  founded  the  most 
interesting  aristocracy  the  world  then  knew  ; 
they  hunted  and  fought,  lived  in  elegant 
homes  with  all  the  appointments  of  civiliza- 


Eje  3s  Htsen.  287 

tion  ;  they  were  educated  and  had  coura- 
geous, enterprising,  and  in  many  respects 
noble  natures.  Now  the  black  man  came  in 
contact  with  this  superior  civilization  two 
centuries  and  a  half  before.  As  the  result, 
what  was  he  ?  Well,  to  the  extent  of  one 
million  souls  he  was  white.  The  disowned 
offspring  of  his  masters,  born  in  sin,  with  the 
seal  of  his  shame  set  on  his  forehead  as  a 
mark  of  Cain,  forever  to  appeal  for  justice  and 
consideration  to  the  people  of  this  land.  He 
had  almost  no  knowledge  of  right  and  wrong  ; 
small  morals,  boundless  emotionalism.  He 
was  a  thief  when  thieving  could  be  done  by  a 
sneak  ;  he  was  a  savage  in  his  ignorance,  a 
child  in  his  dependence.  Behold  the  effect 
of  two  hundred  and  fifty  years'  contact  with 
civilization. 

But  how  about  the  hundreds  of  thousands 
in  the  slums  of  a  great  city,  whose  homes  are 
the  houses  of  one  or  two  rooms,  who  daily 
jostle  on  the  streets  the  better  classes  of  the 
metropolis,  who  certainly  are  at  hand  to  the 
elevating  influences  of  civilization  !  To  say 
they  have  no  religion  is  no  competent  answer, 
for  how  can  they  hear  except  they  have  a 
preacher,  and  religion  is  not  responsible  for 
the  man  who  does   not  accept  it.     Christ  is 


288         Hen)  Concepts  of  £){b  Dogmas, 

the  power  of  God  unto  salvation  to  those  who 
believe.  Why  is  it  the  city  goes  from  cor- 
ruption to  corruption  in  private  life,  and  in 
public  and  political  morality,  if  the  elevating 
power  of  civilization  is  the  only  potent  and 
all-powerful  factor  in  reformation  of  life  and 
manners  ?  Why  did  the  ancient  civilizations, 
the  Assyrio-Persian,  the  Greek,  the  Roman, 
fairly  rot  to  pieces  in  their  ages  of  highest 
splendor,  joint  by  joint,  as  if  they  were  being 
eaten  off  by  the  gangrene  of  personal  corrup- 
tion ?  The  Ingersol  party  then  had  its  inn- 
ings ;  shall  it  have  them  again  ? 

But  to  go  back  again  to  our  early  experi- 
ence. The  budding  soul  awakened  to  a 
knowledge  of  itself  finds  an  environment 
which  leads  to  a  special  intellectual,  moral, 
and  spiritual  endowment.  We  call  it  Chris- 
tianity, or  the  Christian  religion.  I  dub  it 
the  influence  of  Christ  on  hearts  that  love 
him  ;  L  believe  it  to  be  the  one  all-powerful 
leverage  for  making  men  better,  whether 
savage  or  civilized  ;  I  believe  that  civilization 
without  it  is  only  manners  and  of  doubtful 
utility.  If  man  is  to  live  like  a  beast,  let  him 
live  in  a  wigwam  ;  it  is  his  proper  habitation  ; 
it  is  where  he  first  laired,  and  is  his  native 
heath.      To  put  a  low,  immoral  drunkard  into 


^e  3s  Ktscn.  289 

a  fine  house  is  indeed  putting  a  beast  in  the 
parlor. 

Christian  manhood  and  womanhood,  then, 
deserve  the  best  things,  for  they  make  civ- 
ilization wherever  it  differs  from  a  society- 
formed  on  natural  principles.  It  ennobles, 
beautifies,  saves  this  life.  Hence  it  is  that 
unfolding  to  the  eye  of  faith  the  life  immortal, 
and  preparing  a  soul  for  death,  notwithstand- 
ing all  makes  the  soul  cling  to  this  life,  be- 
cause Christianity  alone  makes  this  life  worth 
living.  To  work  out  such  an  anomaly  is 
necessary  in  order  to  have  the  terms  of  true 
religion  fulfilled.  It  must  point  to  heaven,  it 
must  ennoble  earth  ;  it  must  lead  the  soul  to 
Elysium,  it  must  make  Elysium  in  the  heart ; 
it  must  make  it  gain  to  die  ;  it  must  make  it 
glorious  to  live  ;  it  must  make  us  dream  of 
the  life  to  come  with  the  glorified  saints,  and 
make  us  pant  for  battle  as  good  soldiers  of 
Jesus  Christ.  It  is  as  though  Christ  took  us 
by  the  hand  and  walked  the  way.  All  uplift- 
ing  of  human  life  in  its  motives  comes  from 
Christ.  We  learn  to  sympathize  with  His 
Spirit ;  we  learn  to  make  His  love  our  love  ; 
we  live  His  spirit  and  motive  into  our  life  so 
far  as  we  can.  He  touches  us  through  others 
who  love  and  imitate  Him  ;  He  touches  us 
19 


290         HetD  Concepts  of  016  Dogmas. 

through  the  habits  and  usages  of  the  com- 
munity in  so  far  as  it  is  moulded  by  the  mind 
of  Christ  ;  He  touches  us  through  history  ; 
He  touches  us  through  tales  of  heroism  ;  He 
touches  us  through  art.  Put  above  your 
mantel  some  glorious  photograph  of  the  Ma- 
donna, or  some  great  picture  of  the  Man  of 
Sorrows  himself,  as  the  unique  story  of  His  life 
impressed  the  imagination  of  a  genius  ;  for  to 
think  of  Him  seriously  once  a  year  is  worth 
the  whole  cost. 

So  we  are  led  to  passion-week.  We  stand 
^with  the  spectators  in  the  gloom  of  the 
cloud  overshadowing  the  cross,  in  the  gloom 
of  that  cloud  witnessed  afar  off  in  Egypt. 
We  see  Him  laid  in  Joseph  of  Arima- 
thea's  new  tomb.  Thus  far  what  is  the  key 
to  the  whole  career .''  There  is  no  clue;  the 
wonder  of  the  life  is  supernatural,  as  by  mira- 
cle, but  its  true  nature  does  not  come  with 
convicting  force.  With  the  resurrection  from 
the  dead  added,  all  things  are  complete.  We 
see  that  God  was  behind  Him,  that  the  God- 
head was  in  Him.  We  understand  the  uni- 
<iueness  of  His  morality  because  it  was  God's  ; 
"we  understand  the  absoluteness  of  His  teach- 
ing of  truth  because  it  was  God's  truth.  You 
know  where  we  started  with  a  few  luminous 


^e  3s  Hisen.  291 

points  on  the  photosphere  of  the  unknown  ; 
the  light  has  grown,  until  at  length,  fully  orbed, 
manhood  stands  on  the  confines  of  eternity 
with  the  Crucified  ;  he  has  drunk  in  his  meas- 
ure of  the  fullness  of  love  ;  his  common  life 
has  been  ennobled  ;  from  beast-hood  he  has 
come  to  manhood  ;  he  has  apprehended  some- 
what of  the  divine  nature  of  justice  ;  he  has 
come  to  see  that  it  is  past  relations,  that  jus- 
tice is  immutable  ;  being  just,  he  knows  what 
it  is  to  be  generous  ;  through  good  will  to 
others,  born  of  love  for  them,  he  comes  to  be 
merciful  ;  and  when  Jesus  passed  through  the 
gates  of  death,  and  opened  up  assurance  to 
humanity  of  the  immorality  He  had  pledged 
to  man,  this  reflex  influence  upon  a  man's 
heart,  if  he  has  grown  in  any  measure  into 
His  likeness,  is  like  a  flood  tide  under  a  con- 
vulsion of  nature.  Before  him  stretches  the 
horizon  of  eternities,  even  the  horizon  of 
Jesus  ;  his  approaching  death  loses  half  its 
terrors  through  the  approaching  immortali- 
ties. Within,  he  is  conscious  of  a  soul  growth 
gained  through  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  He  finds 
that  Christ  has  led  him  to  God,  that  Christ 
has  been  the  revelator  of  God,  and  so  full  and 
complete  a  revelator  that  he  can  say  Christ  is 
God.     He  is  conscious  that  ennoblement  and 


292         Xlevo  Concepts  of  £)Ib  Dogmas. 

enlargement  of  his  powers  is  of,  through,  and 
by  God.  And  he  rejoices  this  Easter  day  in 
the  resurrection  from  the  dead  as  the  key- 
stone of  the  arch,  without  which  the  charac- 
ter of  Christ  must  fall  a  ruin,  and  without 
which  he  would  be  unable  to  turn  his  face  to 
the  stars  in  hope. 


A    SELECTION 


FROM 


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Popular  Vellum  Series. 


Every  issue  in  tlie  series  is  a  little  work  of  marked  merit, 
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jdmo.f  each  J2  pages,  vellum  paper,  edges  turned  in^  each  2oc.; 
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12.    Temptation.    A  Talk  to  Young  Men.    By  Rev.  James  Stalker. 

D.  D. 
II.    The  Dew  of  Thy  Youth.    A  Message  to  "  Endeavorers."  By  Rev. 

J.  R.  Miller,  D.D. 

lo.  How  to  Become  a  Christian.  Five  Simple  Talks.  By  Rev. 
Lyman  Abbott,  D.  D.  I,  Disciples  or  Scholars.  II.  Be- 
lievers or  Faithful.  III.  Followers  or  Soldiers.  IV.  Brethren 
or  Members  of  the  Household.    V.    Saints  or  the  Holy. 

9.  The  Four  Men.  By  Rev.  James  Stalker,  D.  D.  I.  The  Man 
the  World  Sees.  II.  The  Man  Seen  by  the  Person  Who  Knows 
Him  Best.  HI.  The  Man  Seen  by  Himself.  IV.  The  Man  Whom 
God  Sees. 

8.  The  Fight  of  Faith  and  the  Cost  of  Character.  Talks  to  Young 
Men.    By  Rev.  Theodore  L.  Cuyler,  D.  D. 

7.  Hope:  The  Last  Thing  in  the  World.  By  Rev.  A.  T.  Pier- 
son,  D.  D. 

6.  The  First  Thing  in  the  World;  or,  the  Primacy  of  Faith.  By 
Rev.  A.  J.  Gordon,  D.  D. 

5.  The  Message  of  Jesus  to  Men  of  Wealth.  A  Tract  for  the 
Times.  By  Rev.  George  D.  Herron.  Introduction  by  Rev. 
Josiah  Strong. 

4.  Power  From  on  High :  Do  we  need  it,  What  is  it,  Can  we  get 
it  ?    By  Rev.  B.  Fay  Mills. 

3.  How  to  Learn  How.  Addresses  by  Prof.  Henry  Drummond. 
I.    Dealing  -wich  Doubt.    II.    Preparation  for  Learning. 

z.  The  Perfected  Life:  The  Greatest  Need  of  the  W  orld.  By  Prof. 
Henry  Drummond. 

J.  Love,  The  Supreme  Gift:  The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World. 
By  Prof.  Henry  Drummond. 

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dream.    By  Mrs.  L.  H.  Crane. 

Wanted— Antiseptic  Christians.  A  plea  for  purity  of  life  and  walk. 
By  Maud  Ballingtoa  Booth. 


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The  large  success  of  the  series  thus  far  is  an  index  of 
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First  Battles  and  How  to  Fight  Them.  Some 
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Contents:  Money  and  Morals  — Shams —  The  Philosophy  of 
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"  It  is  true  in  its  substance,  attractive  in  its  style,  and  admirable 
in  its  spirit.  I  heartily  commend  this  little  volume." — Rev.  John 
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Cloth   "- .50 

"This  is  positively  the  best  book  for  young  men  that  we  have 
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manly  Christianity.  We  can  certify  that  no  one  will  find  it  stupid." 
— St  Andrew's  Cross. 

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B\  W.  A.  Bodell.  Introduction  by  Rev. 
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tians thinking,  or,  better  still,  working,"— Sunday-Sch>ol  Times. 

Brave   and  True.     Talks  to  Young  Men.      Bv 

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"  This  is  one  of  the  books  the  wide  circulation  of  which  cannot  be 
too  greatly  desired." — Presbyterian  Journal. 

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this  book." — St.  Andrew's  Cross. 

Thoroughness.    Talks  to  Young  Men.    By  Rev. 

Thain  Davidson,  D.D.     Cloth. _ .50 

The  latest  work  by  this  eminently  helpful  writer  for  young  men. 

New  York:  Fleming  H.  Revell  Company:  Chicagow 


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the:  CHRISTIAN'S 

SECRET  OF  A  HAPPY  LIFE. 


This  Work,  the  demand  for  which 
has  been  so  great  as  to  wear  out  two 
sets  of  plates,  has  now  been  put  in 
entirely  new  form.  The  book  hav- 
ing become  an  accepted  classic  in  de- 
votional literature,  it  was  thought 
wise  to  issue  this  new  edition  in  a 
compact  form,  and  in  a  variety  of 
bindings.  Occasion  has  also  been 
taken  by  the  author  to  thoroughly  re- 
vise the  whole  work,  besides  adding 
considerable  new  matter. 


Few  Books  of  a  Religious  Character  have  been 
accorded  such  Hearty  and  Universal  En- 
dorsement from  all  Denominations. 

*'  To  commend  this  work  would  seem  almost  superfluous; 
and  yet  to  young  Christians  who  may  not  know  it,  we  can- 
not refrain  from  saying,  Buy  this  book,  and  keep  it  with 
your  Bible  for  constant  study,  until  you  have  thoroughly 
mastered,  in  your  own  experience,  the  '  secret '  of  which  it 
tells.  It  will  transform  the  dark  days  of  your  life,  as  it 
has  transformed  those  of  thousands  before  you,  into  days 
of  heavenly  light." — New  York  Evangelist 

"  We  have  not  for  years  read  a  book  with  more  delight 
and  profit.  The  author  has  a  rich  experience,  and  tells  it 
in  a  plain  and  delightful  manner." — Christian  Advocate. 


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ATTRACTIVE  TRUTHS, 

IN  LESSON  AND  STORY. 


JL*  P*  S«  C«  Ef 

TEXT-BOOK  FOR  JUNIOR  SOCIETIES. 

A  series  of  outline  lessons,  with  iU 
lustra  five  stories  for  Junior  Chris- 
tian Endeavor  Societies,  Child- 
ren's  Meetiiigs,   and  Home 
Teaching. 

By  Mrs.  A.  M.  SCUDDER, 

With  Introduction  by  Rev.  Francis 
E.  Clark,  President  Y.  P.  S.  C.  E. 

12ino,  351  pages.  Cloth,  $1.25. 

Dr.  Clark,  in  his  introduction,  says: — "  This  book  we  most  heartily 
welcome,  not  only  for  what  it  indicates,  but  for  what  it  is,  for  we  have 
never  seen  any  work  more  admirably  fitted  to  its  purpose.  In  fact  lit- 
erature of  this  sort  is  very  scanty,  and  so  far  as  we  know,  this  book 
occupies  a  place  all  its  own.  In  the  home,  in  Sunday-school  class,  in 
the  mission  circle,  above  all,  in  the  children's  meeting,  this  volume  will 
find  its  place,  and  will  be  welcomed  eagerly  by  many  a  perplexed  par- 
ent, pastor,  and  teacher. 

We  do  not  see  why  this  book,  with  its  weaftn  of  suggestive  material, 
its  outhne  studies  on  all  matters  of  practical  Christianity,  and  its  hap- 
pily chosen  stories,  may  not  be  used  »  a  text-book  by  leaders  of  these 
societies." 

/ 

"This  book  occupies  a  new  field,  and  occupies  it  well.  No  other 
book  in  the  language,  so  far  as  we  know,  has  even  attempted  just  this 
task  of  providing  a  manual  for  teachers  of  children's  classes,  superin- 
tendents of  Junior  Endeavor  Societies  and  the  like.  Each  lesson  be- 
gins with  certain  ^.b!  texts  bearing  on  the  subject,  to  be  marked 
and  explained,  then  an  outline  of  the  subject,  followed  by  a  story 
which  illustrates  and  enforces  it.  There  is  nothing  weak  or  puerile 
about  the  book,  but  thee  is  a  wealth  of  information  and  suggestion,  of 
which  theusands  of  workers  among  the  children  will  avail  themselves. 
Superintendents  of  Junior  Christian  Endeavor  Societies  will  find  it  very 
useful,  in  fact,  almost  indispensable.  We  commend  it  most  cordially." 
■^Golden  Rule, 


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IN  CHRIST ,'  or,  THE  Believer's  Union  with  hi3 
Lord.    Seventh  Edition,  12mo,  fine  cloth,  210  pages,  $1.00. 

We  do  not  remember  since  Thomas  a  Kempis  a  book  bo  thorough- 
ly imbued  with  great  personal  love  to  Christ.  It  is  evidently  the 
happy  result  of  hours  of  high  communion  with  him.— Boston 
Courier. 

The  true  standard  of  Christian  excellence  is  nobly  upheld  and 
displayed  in  these  pages,  which  cannot  fail  to  impress  every 
thoughtful  reader  by  whom  the  volume  is  taken  in  hand.— Rock. 

THE  MINISTRY  OF  HEALING;  or,  MIRACLES  or 
Curb  in  all  ages.  Third  Edition.  ISmo,  fine  cloth,  250 
pages,  $1.25. 

An  interesting  and  thoughtful  work.  Dr.  Gordon  marshals  to- 
gether witnesses  from  all  ages  and  all  classes  in  favor  of  his  belief 
that  cures  may  still  be  wrought  through  prayer. — British  and 
Foreign  Evangelical  Review. 

THE  TWO-FOLD  LIFE;  or  Christ's  WORK  FOR  Us, 
AND  Christ's  Work  in  Us.  12mo,  fine  cloth,  285  pages, 
$1.25. 

Distinguished  by  exqiiisite  purity  of  thought,  by  deep  spiritual 
insight,  and  by  great  si  rength  of  practical  argument.  The  work 
is  one  of  great  spiritual  beauty  and  helpfulness.— Baptist  Maga- 
zine. 

Its  perusal  will  amply  repay  the  reader  who  wishes  to  be- 
come a  full-grown  Christian.— C.  H.  8purgeon. 

GRACE  AND  GLORY;  SERMONS  FOR  THE  Life  That 
Now  Is  AND  That  Which  Is  To  Come.  l2ino,  fine  cloth, 
355  pages,  $1.50. 

Here  we  have  power  without  sensationalism;  calm  thought,  liv- 
ing and  earnest,  expressed  in  forcible  language;  the  doctrine  or- 
thodox, evangelical,  {practical.  We  shall  be  surprised  if  these 
discourses  are  not  reprinted  by  an  English  hovise.- C.  H.  SPURGEON. 

....The  author's  manner  of  treating  spiritual  truths  is  both 
powerful  and  impressive. — London  Morning  Post. 

ECCE  VENIT;  BEHOLD  HE  COMETH.  12mo,  fine  cloth, 
311  pages,  $1.25. 

Written  in  a  singulkrly  graceful  style,  as  also  in  a  singularly 
gracious  spirit. — Watchman  and  Reflector. 

Dr.  Gordon  is  a  writer  with  whom  to  differ  is  better  and  mors 
suggestive  than  to  agree  with  some  others.  He  loves  the  truth;  he 
gives  his  readers  much  that  is  true  and  deeply  of  the  essence  of 
Christianity;  it  is  impossible  to  read  his  book  without  being  stim- 
ulated by  it  and  getting  higher  and  fresher  views  of  some  aspects 
of  Christianity  which  are  perhaps  dwelt  on  less  than  they  should 
be.— Independent. 
THE    FIRST   THING    IN   THE    WOULD;    or,  Thb 

Primacy  of  Faith.    Vellum  paper  covers,  $.20. 

***  Any  of  the  above  sent,  post  free,  to  any  address  on  re- 
ceipt of  price. 

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New  York.         ...         -         Chicago. 


"  HERE  ARE  TWO  BOOKS 

kindred  in  their  character, 
though  distinct  in  the  kind  of 
information  given,  which  every 
Bible  student,  be  he  preacher, 
Sunday  •  school  teacher,  oi 
Christian  worker  of  any  sort, 
will  wish  to  have  as  soon  as  he 
has  laid  his  eyes  upon  them. 

They  are  genuine  helps  to 
Scripture  study,  and  each  in  its 
Vv'ay  thorough  and  complete. 
We  know  of  no  two  works  that 
will  prove  more  servicable  to 
this  end,  aside  from  the  Bible 
itself,  than  the  two  volumes 
now  before  us.'"— The  Stand' 
ard. 


The  Bible  Text  Cyclopedia.  A  complete  classification 
of  Scripture  Texts  in  the  form  of  an  alphabetical  list  of 
subjects.  By  Rev.  James  Inglis.  Large  8vo,  524  pages, 
cloth,  1 1. 75. 

^'•The  Bible  Text  Cyclopedia^''''  by  James  Inglis,  "is  a  com 
plete  classification  of  Scripture  texts  in  the  form  of  an  alphabeti- 
cal list  of  subjects,  which  is  more  sensible  and  convenient,  and 
every  way  more  satisfactory,  than  any  book  of  the  kind  we  have 
ever  known,  for  some  years  we  have  had  it  in  constant  service 
in  our  Bible  study  ;  and  our  sense  of  its  value  has  grown  with  the 
passing  years.  We  know  of  no  other  work  comparable  with  it, 
in  this  department  of  stnAy.''''— Extract  from  editorial  in  Sun- 
day-School Times, 

The  Treasury  of  Scripture  Knowledge.  Consisting 
of  Five  Hund7-ed  Thousand  Scripture  references  and 
parallel  passages,  and  numerous  illustrative  notes.  8vo, 
cloth,  700  pages,  $2.00. 

"You  have  conferred  a  favor  on  the  Bible  Students  of  America 
by  issuing  your  edition  of  The  Treasury  of  Scripture  Knowl- 
edge. It  is  a  great  improvement  on  Bag6ter''s  edition.  Bible 
students  who  desire  to  compare  scripture  with  scripture  will  find 
the  Treasury  to  be  a  better  help  than  any  other  book  of  which  I 
have  any  knowledge."— .B.  B.  McBurney.,  Gen''l  Sec'y  Y.  M.  C,A. 
2few  York. 


CHICAGO. 


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EWYORK. 


An  Agent  wanted  in  every  Town  In  the  United  States  to 
canTass  for  this  work. 


■  ♦  ■ 


100,000 
SYNONYMS 

AND 

ANTONYMS. 

■  ■  ♦  ■  ■ 

A  COMPLETE  DICTIONARY 

OF 

Synonyms    and    Antonyms,    or,    Synonyms    and 
Words  of  Opposite   Meaning-, 
With  an  Appendix 
Embracing:  a  Dictionary  of  Briticisms,  Americanisms,  Collo- 
quial Phrases,  etc.,  in  current  use;  the  Grammatical  uses 
of  Prepositions  and  Prepositions  Discriminated,  a 
list  of  Homonyms  and  Homophonous  Words; 
a  collection  of  Foreign  Phrases,  and 
a  complete  list  of  Abbreviations 
and  Contractions  used  in 
writing:  and  printini:. 

BY 

Rt.  Rev.  SAMUEL  FALLOWS,  A.M.,  D.  D. 
One  Vol.  5 1 2  Pages,  Cloth.    Price,  $1.00. 

Cloth,  Gilt,  Beveled  Board,  Canary  Edge.    Price,  $1.60. 

Daily  American,  Nashville,  Tenn. 

•'  A  book  that  may  be  called  well  nigh  invaluable  to  every 
class  of  people — students,  literary  men,  public  speakers,  or  any 
who  have  much  of  writing  to  do.  Scarcely  any  one  can  afford 
to  do  without  it,  and  to  the  person  who  writes  in  a  hurry  it 
will  prove  a  boon  indeed." 
Col.  Francis  W.  Parker,  Principal  Cook  County  Normal  School. 

' '  A  very  valuable  book  to  have  at  ones  elbow  for  constant 
use." 

Tbos.      B.      Stockwell,      State    Commissioner     Public    Schools, 
Providence,  Rhode  Island. 
*'  Of  real  value  and  helpful  in  many  ways,  and  will  commend 
itself  to  every  student." 


CHICAGO. 


Fleming  H.  Revell  Company,  n 


EW  YORK. 


SUGG:BSTIVn  BOOKS 

JPOR  BIBI^JB  RBA.DJBRS. 

'■ — ♦  ♦  ♦ 

THE  OPEN  SECRET;  or,  the  Bible  Explaining 
Itself.    By  Hannah  Whitall  Smith. 

That  the  author  of  this  work  has  a  faculty  of  presenting 
the  "Secret  Things"  that  are  revealed  in  the  Word  of 
God,  is  apparent  to  all  who  have  read  the  exceedingly  pop- 
ular work,  "  The  Christian's  Secret  of  a  Happy  Life," 
and  such  will  not  be  disappointed  in  expecting  to  find  in 
this  new  volume  a  fullness  and  sweetness  in  the  unfolding  of 
God's  Word,  in  its  application  to  the  practical  and  daily  du- 
ties of  Christian  living.     i2mo,  320  pages,  cloth,  $1.00. 

BIBLE  BRIEFS ;  or,  Outline  Themes  for  Scrip- 
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224  pages,  cloth,  $1.00. 

*•  Here  are    sermons  in  miniature,  which  any  preacher  will  find   it 

{profitable  to  expand  into  sermons  in  full  measure.  True  Biblical  out- 
ines  are  here  ;  not  artificial  '  sketches,'  but  Scripture  frame-works. 
Oh,  that  the  preachers  would  depend  on  such  frame-works,  rather  than 
on  such  jire-wor^s  as  many  of  them  attempt !" — Jiev.  A.J,  Cordon^ 
D,  D.y  in   The  Watchivord. 

"  Here  you  have  meat  without  bones,  and  land  without  stones.  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Needham  will  have  the  gratitude  of  many  a  hard-pressed 
teacher  when  he  is  hard  up  for  a  talk."— i?^z/.  C.  H.  Sturgeon. 

BIBLE  HELPS  FOR  BUSY  MEN.     By  A.  C.  P. 

COOTE. 

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and  printed   in   good   legible  type,  with  an  alphabetical 

index.     140  pages,  i6mo,  paper,  30c. ;  cloth,  6oc. 

*'  The  topics  are  familiar  in  thought  and  form,  and  are  in  many  cases 
admirably  adapted  for  Bible  readings  and  for  prayer  meetings.  '  Busy 
Men,'  upon  whom  rests  the  responsibility  of  leading  a  meeting  and 
choosing  a  topic,  and  especially  of  conducting  an  evangelistic  meeting, 
will  find  this  little  book  of  decided  value."— T/iir  Golden  Rule. 

"  Likely  to  be  of  use  to  overworked  brethren."— C.  H.  Spurgeon. 

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Popular  MissionaryBiograpWes 

12mo,  160  pages.    Fully  illustrated.    Cloth  extra,  75  cents  each. 


From  The  Missionary 
Herald. 

"  We  commended  this  ser- 
ies in  our  last  issue,  and  a 
further  examination  leads  us 
to  renew  our  commendation, 
and  to  urge  the  placing  of 
this  series  of  missionary 
books  in  all  our  Sabbath- 
school  libraries. 

These  books  are  handsome- 
ly printed  and  bound  and  are 
beautifully  illustrated,  and  we 
are  confident  that  they  will 
prove  attractive  to  all  young 
people." 


•'  These  are  not  pans  of  milk,  but  little  pitchers  of  cream,  compact  and 
condensed  from  bulkier  volumes." — Dr.  A.  1 .  Pierson. 

SAMUEL  CBOWTHEB,  the  Slave  Boy  who  became 
Bishop  of  the  Niger.  By  Jesse  Page,  author  of  "  Bishop 
Patteson." 

THOMAS  J.  COMBEB,  Missionary  Pioneer  to  the 
Congo.  By  Rev.  J.  B.  Myers,  Association  Secretary  Baptist  Mis- 
sionary Society. 

BISHOP  PATTESON,  the  Martyr  of  Melanesia.     By 

Jesse  PAGt. 

GBIFFITH  JOHN,  Founder  of  the  Hankow  Mission, 
Central  China.  By  Wm.  Robson,  of  the  London  Missionary 
Society. 

BOBEBT  MOBBISON,  the  Pioneer  of  Chinese    Mis- 

sions.     By  Wm.  J.   Townsend,  Sec.  Methodist  New  Connexion 
Missionary  Society. 

BOBEBT  MOFFAT,  the  Missionary  Hero  ofKuruman, 

By  David  J.  Deane,  author  of  "  Martin  Luther,  the  Reformer,"  etc. 

WILLIAM  CABET,  the  Shoemaker  who  became  a  MiS' 

sionary.     By.  Rev.  J.    B.   Myers,  Association  Secretary  Baptist 
Missionary  Society. 

mIAMES  CHALMEBS,  Missionary  and   Explorer  of 

Marotonga   and   New    Guinea.     By    Wm.  Robson,    of  the 
London  Missionary  Society. 

MISSIONABT  LADIES  IN  FOBEIGN  LANDS.    By 

Mrs.  E.  R.  Pitman,  author  of  "  Heroines  of  the  Missionary  Fields, 
etc. 
JAMES  CALVEBT;  or,  From  Dark  to  Datvn  in  Fiji. 

JOHN  WILLIAMS,  the  Martyr  of  Polynesia.  By  Rev. 
James  J.  Ellis. 

HENBT  MABTYN,   His  Life  and  Labors.      By  jESsa 

Pagb,  author  of  ''Bishop  Patterson,"  etc. 
DA  VID  BRAINEBD :    Apostle  to  American  Indians. 
MADAGASCAB :    Its  Missionaries  and  Martyrs. 
DAVID  LIVINGSTONE ;  By  Arthur  Montefiore,  F.  R.  Q.  il 


3mportanl  fllMeaionari?  369ue6» 

Published  by  the  Pletnins:  H.  Revell  Company. 


Henry  Marty n,  Saint  and   Scholar,    First  Modem 

Missionary  to  the  Mohammedans.  1781-1812.  By  George 
Smith,  C.  I.  E.,  LL.D.,  author  of  "Life  of  William  Carey," 
"Life  of  Alexander  Duff,"  etc.  With  Portrait  and  Illus- 
trations.   Large  Crown  Svo.,  cloth 3.50 

"Dr.  Smith  fills  up  with  healthy,  human  detail  what  before 
lay  in  bare  outline.  We  have  here  a  Martyn  who  could  talk, 
laugh  and  fall  in  love  like  other  people,but  who  while  relating 
himself  wholesomely  in  this  way  to  the  rest  of  his  fellows,  in 
what  was  special  to  his  character  and  his  work  still  rises  to 
heights  which  pierce  the  heavens."— C^ris^ia?i  Wo?  Id. 

James  Gilmour,  of  Mongolia.  His  Diaries,  Letters, 
and  Reports,  edited  and  arranged  by  Richard  Lovett,  M.  A. 
With  three  Portraits,  two  Maps  and  other  Illustrations. 
Large  Crown  Svo.    cloth 1.75 

"The  story  of  James  Gilmour  will,  if  we  mistake  not,  take 
a  place  of  its  own  in  modern  missionary  literature.  To  a 
world  devoted  so  much  to  mercenary  interests,  and  a  Church 
too  given  to  take  things  easily,  the  life  is  at  once  a  rebuke  and 
an  appeal  not  easily  to  be  forgotten."— r/im^'iori  World. 

"We  gladly  welcome  another  notable  addition  to  the  number 
of  Impressive  and  fascinating  missionary  books— a  volume  fit 
to  stand  on  he  same  shelf  with  the  biographies  of  Paton  and 
Mackay."— BriYts/i  Weekly. 

"James  Gilmour  may  appear  to  some  as  a  hero,  to  others 
as  a  deluded  enthusiast,  but  no  one  who  takes  up  this  account 
of  his  life  and  work  can  fail  to  be  fascinated  by  it.'"— Man- 
chester Guardian. 

The  Ainu  of  Japan.  The  Religions,  Superstitions 
and  the  General  History  of  the  Hairy  Aborigines  of  Japan. 
By  the  Rev.  John  Batchelor.C.M.S.Missionary  to  the  Ainu. 

80  Illustrations.   12mo.  cloth 1.50 

"Mr.  Batchelor's  book  is  valuable  as  being  the  first  which 

treats  at   any   length    of  this   strange  people."— Pai^   Mall 

Gazette. 

A  Winter  in  North  China.      By  Rev.  T.  M.  Morris 

With  Introduction  by  Rev.  Richard  Glover,  D.D.  Map- 
cloth  1  50 

"A  vein  of  cheerful  humor  running  through  the  work  makes 
It  one  of  the  brightest  books  of  travel  we  have  seen  for  a  long 
time.''— Christian  World. 

"It  will  tend,  we  hope,  to  stimulate  and  deepen  Interest  in 
uie  teeming  multitudes  of  densely  populated  China."— TA* 
Btcord. 


Missionary  Publications. 


The  Child  of  the  Ganges.     A   tale    of    the  Judson 

Mission,  by  Rev.  Prof.  rTN.  Barrett.  Illustrated.  12ino., 
cloth 1.25 

Contains  many  striking  incidents  in  the  life  of  Adoniram 
Judson,  deftly  woven  into  a  most  interesting  and  fascinating 
story. 

The  Holy  Spirit  in  nissions.  By  Rev.  A.  J.  Gordon, 

D.  D,    r.imo.,  cloth,  gilt  top  (i/i  jpress) 1.25 

A  new  volume  by  this  author  is  always  welcomed.  The 
theme  of  this  new  work,  as  treated  by  Dr.  Gordon,  is  &ure  to 
be  of  deepest  interest. 

The  Story  of  Uganda  and  the   Victoria  Nyanza 

'  Mission,  by  S.  G.  Stock.  With  a  Map  and  Illustrations. 
12mo.,  cloth 1.35 

**Do  Not  5ay;"  or,  The  Church's  Excuse  for  Neg- 
lecting the  Heathen.    Paper.    100  pages wei,  10c. 

"An  earnest  and  forcible  appeal."— PFa/'cAman. 

"A  most  earnest,  pungent  and  reasonable  appeal."— Stitg^ 
ious  Telescope. 

"A  telling  contribution  to  missionary  literature."— Pr(?«&y- 
terian  Journal. 

"An  earnest,  ringing  Macedonian  cry."— iV.  F.  Observer. 

John  Kenneth  Mackenzie.     Medical  Missionary  to 

China:  wi'.h  the  story  of  the  first  Chinese  Hospital.  By 
Mrs.  Bryson.    12mo.,  cloth,  400  pages 1.50 

"A  noble  story  of  a  noble  m.di.n.''''— Christian  Intelligencer. 

"There  is  inspiration  in  a  biography  like  this."— 6=o^de»  Bule. 

"Should  be  placed  in  the  library  beside  the  autobiography 
of  John  G  Paton." — Missionary  Herald. 

"Missionary  Literature  is  greatly  enriched  by  the  addition 
of  this  stimulating  volume."— 6%ri«<tan  Enquirer. 

"The  book  will  take  a  notable  place  among  the  record  of 
those  lives  with  whose  fragrance  the  world  is  being  perfumed 
in  these  later  do.ys.'"— Christian  Union, 

John   G.    Paton.     Missionary  to  the  New  Hebrides. 

An  Autobiography  edited  by  his  brother.    Introductiry 

note  by  Dr.  A,  T.  Pierfcon.    12mo.,  2  vols n^^  2.00 

"The  most  robust  and  the  most  fascinating  piece  of  auto- 
biography that  I  have  met  with  in  many  a  day He  was 

made  of  the  same  stuff  with  Livingstone." — Theo.  L.  Cuyler. 

"Perhaps  the  most  important  addition  for  many  years  to  the 
library  of  missionary  literature." — Christian  Advocate 

Medical    Missions.    Their  Place    and  Power.     By 

John  Lowe,  Secretary  of  the  Edinburg  Medical  Mission 
Society.     12mo.,  808  pages,  cloth 1.50 

"Well  worth  Btudc^.'"— Independent. 

"An  earner  t,  intelligent  and  mighty  plea."— Pt/6^tc  Or^-'On. 

"Dr.  Lowe  writes  with  enthusiasm  yet  with  calmness;  he  la 
ftn  authority  on  the  subject." — Missionary  Herald. 


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